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Hermione Granger And The Goblet Of Sexism

Chapter Twelve: The Feast / The Triwizard Tournament

Through the gates, flanked with statues of winged boars, and up the sweeping drive the carriages trundled, swaying dangerously in what was fast become a gale. Hermione sat with her knees pressed together tightly, her Hogwarts robes spread over them, her moody cat tucked up in her cloak under one arm. Lightning flashed and lit the interior of the carriage up like broad daylight as they approached the castle, and for just a moment she could see her companions quite clearly.

Then it was dark again, the rain loud on the roof of the carriage as it pulled abruptly to a halt. Compulsively, she pushed her unruly hair out of her face. Harry and Ron jumped out into the downpour in a hurry, and she and then Neville followed behind. They all hurried up the massive stone steps into the entrance of Hogwarts Castle. Then they stepped into the magnificent, torch-lit, entrance hall. On one side was the opulent marble staircase, leading up to the many floors of classrooms and dormitories above, and on the other was the entrance to the Great Hall.

“Blimey,” said Ron, shaking himself like an excited puppy, and sending water droplets every which way, “if that keeps up the lake’s going to overflow. I’m soak — ARRGH!”

A large, red, water filled balloon had just dropped from the ceiling and straight onto Ron’s head, where it exploded. Drenched and sputtering, Ron staggered sideways and collided with Harry, just as a second water bomb dropped. Hermione ducked out of the way just in time, and it missed her, instead bursting at Harry’s feet. She saw his eyes open wide. People all around them shrieked and started pushing one and other, in their efforts to get out of the line of fire. Just then, Crookshanks leapt out from Hermione’s robes, and darted up the stairs. She hoped he remembered how to get to the dormitory, but he’d never yet gotten lost at Hogwarts.

Hermione glanced upwards, towards the ceiling, rather carefully. And sure enough, there was Peeves the Poltergeist. He was different than the castle ghosts, who were all white-ish and nearly transparent. Peeves was something else entirely — a little man in a bell-covered hat and orange bowtie — and he loved nothing more than to harass the students and make mischief within the castle.

It was Professor McGonagall, transfiguration instructor, head of Gryffindor House, Deputy Headmistress, and an extremely accomplished witch in her own right. Professor McGonagall was one of Hermione’s very favorite teachers, and she was dashing out of the Great Hall to put an end to Peeves’ trouble making. Unfortunately, she skidded on the wet floor and slid right into Hermione, nearly choking Hermione in her attempt to keep from falling.

“Ouch — sorry, Miss Granger —” McGonagall breathed.

“That’s all right, Professor!” Hermione gasped.

“Peeves, get down here Now!” McGonagall continued, straightening her pointed hat and looking upward through her square-rimmed spectacles. Despite the collision, she still looked quite dignified.

“Not doing nothing!” cackled Peeves, lobbing a water bomb at several fifth-year students, who screamed and dived for the Great Hall. “Already wet, aren’t they? Little squirts! Wheeeee!” And he aimed another bomb at a group of second year boys, who looked positively terrified.

“I shall call the headmaster! I’m warning you, PEEVES —”

Peeves stuck out his tongue, threw the last of his water bombs into the air, and zoomed off up the marble staircase, cackling wildly.

“Well, move along then!” said Professor McGonagall, looking around at the crowd of students in various states of dampness. “Into the Great Hall, come on!”

Hermione, Harry, and Ron carefully made their way across the slippery floor of the entrance hall, and through the double doors on the right, Ron muttering furiously under his breath the whole time.

After three years of studying magic, the Great Hall of Hogwarts still took Hermione’s breath away. Fresh from a summer away, she found herself gaping at its grandeur, at the magically suspended candlesticks in midair and the ceiling bewitched to look like the stormy night sky, just as she had the first time she stepped foot in it. Her skin prickled. Thankfully, this time she was much less nervous. It was decorated splendidly for the start-of-term feast, and the plates and goblets on the four house tables were made of pure gold. Hermione made her way with Harry and Ron past the Slytherin table, then Ravenclaw, then Hufflepuff, before arriving at the Gryffindor house table at the far end of the hall. They seated themselves in open spaces on the long wooden benches, right next to Nearly Headless Nick, the Gryffindor house ghost.

Like all ghosts, Nick was pearly white and semitransparent. Unlike the other ghosts, Nick’s head had been partially severed during a botched beheading. This evening he was wearing a particularly large ruff, perhaps to disguise it or stop his head from wobbling too much.

“Good evening,” he said, in his usual proper tone, beaming at them.

“Says who?” Harry replied, and he took off his sneakers and poured out the water from Peeves’ water bombs right there on the floor of the great hall. “Hope they hurry up with the Sorting. I’m starving.”

The Sorting of new students in Houses took place at the start of every school year, and it was a big part of the reason Hermione had been so very nervous her first year at Hogwarts. She had wanted desperately to be in Gryffindor house, and had been very relieved when her desire was taken into account in the decision. She thought of the of all the first year students, nervously waiting to be brought in, unsure of the future, just as she had once been.

“Hiya, Harry!” a voice called down the table towards Harry Potter in excitement. It was Colin Creevy, a third year Gryffindor who seemed rather taken with Harry. Hermione leaned back slightly, so the two boys could see each other.

Colin could be a bit annoying, but it was sort of nice that he wanted his little brother in the same house as him. Hermione wondered vaguely what it would have been like to have a sister or a brother, and if she would have wanted them in the same house as her. She’d always been happy as an only child, but…

Harry turned to her “Brothers and sisters usually go in the same Houses, don’t they?”

“Oh no,” she said quickly, trying to snap herself out of her thoughts. It was stupid anyway, if she had ever had a sibling, odds were they would have been non-magical, and not gone to Hogwarts at all. Harry was looking at her confusedly, no doubt thinking of all seven Weasleys all being in Gryffindor. “Parvati Patil’s twin’s in Ravenclaw,” she added, “and they’re identical. You’d think they’d be together, wouldn’t you?”

He didn’t say anything.

She glanced up at the staff table, and did a quick headcount. “Where’s the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher?” she said.

In her three years at Hogwarts, they had had a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher every single year. The first had turned out to be in the service of Lord Voldemort, the second had turned out to be a thoroughly disappointing fraud who never should have been allowed to teach in the first place, and the third had been a highly capable instructor who also happened to be a werewolf. He’d resigned at the end of last year, when the secret of his condition had been exposed.

However, this year, the seat usually occupied by the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher appeared to be empty. She scanned the rest of the table, from tiny Professor Flitwick, the Charms teacher, to Professor Sinistra, the Astronomy department. And there was of course Professor Snape, head of Slytherin House and Potions Master. Potions would have been a really fun and fascinating subject, if only Snape weren’t such a bad instructor and so hell bent on favoring students from his own house, and he also had a rather weird and intense feud with Harry Potter. It seemed quite unprofessional, really, to be that threatened by a student. But she would need a good understanding of potions if she was to do well in the wizarding world, so she mostly kept her head down and tried to ignore the nonsense. That strategy had served her well so far, in her second year, she had successfully brewed a Polyjuice Potion, a complex and advanced potion that some adult witches and wizards couldn’t quite handle, which allowed the drinker to take on the physical appearance of another.

McGonagall must have still been in the entrance hall, and of course Hagrid would come in with the first years, since it was his job to take them across the lake. In the center of the staff table sat Professor Dumbledore, the headmaster, who was quite famous in his own right. He was very old, though she did not know his exact age, and his sweeping silver hair and beard were shining in the candlelight.

But no, there was no new face anywhere at the staff table.

“Maybe they couldn’t get anyone!” she said to no one in particular.

“Oh hurry up!” Ron moaned from on Harry’s other side. “I could eat a hippogriff.”

The words were no sooner out of his mouth than the doors of the Great Hall opened, and a sudden silence fell. Professor McGonagall entered, leading a long line of first years, all soaked through completely, up to the top of the hall. They looked to be shivering, and she felt for them. Maybe the one’s from wizarding families had some idea what to expect, but for kids from muggle households, they were starting not only at a new school, but in an entirely new world. The student at the very end of the line of first years was wrapped in something furry and enormous, which if she wasn’t very much mistaken was Hagrid’s moleskin overcoat. He looked less terrified than the others, more enthralled and delighted, as though he were taking everything in.

He also looked a bit like Colin Creevy. And indeed, he caught Colin’s eye, gave a double thumbs-up, and mouthed “I fell in the lake!” while positively beaming.

Professor McGonagall now placed a three legged stool on the floor before the row of first year students and, on top of it, an extremely old, dirty, patched witch or wizard’s hat. The first years stared at it, and so did every other person in the Great Hall. There was a moment of total silence and anticipation, and then a long tear near the brim opened wide, as though it were a mouth, and the hat broke into song:

A thousand years or more ago,

When I was newly sewn,

There lived four wizards of renown

Whose names are still well known:

Bold Gryffindor, from wild moor,

Fair Ravenclaw, from glen

Sweet Hufflepuff, from valley broad,

Shrewd Slytherin, from fen.

They shared a wish, a hope, a dream,

They hatched a daring plan

To educate young sorcerers

Thus Hogwarts School began.

Now each of these four founders

Formed their own house, for each

Did value different virtues

In the ones they had to teach.

By Gryffindor, the bravest were

Prived far beyond the rest;

For Ravenclaw, the cleverest

Would always be the best;

For Hufflepuff, hard workers were

Most worthy of admission;

And power-hungry Slytherin

Loved those of great ambition.

While still alive they did divide

Their favorites from the throng,

Yet how to pick the worthy ones

When they were dead and gone?

‘Twas Gryffindor who found the way,

He whipped me off his head

The founders put some brains in me

So I could choose instead!

Now slip me snug about your ears,

I’ve never yet been wrong,

I’ll have a look inside your mind

And tell where you belong!

The Great Hall erupted with applause as the Sorting Hat Finished its song.

“That’s not the song it sang when it sorted us,” said Harry, looking a bit confused, but clapping all the same. Hermione remembered that Harry had missed seeing the sorting in their second and third years.

“Sings a different one every year,” Ron explained. “It’s got to be a pretty boring life, hasn’t it, being a hat? I suppose it spends all year making up the next one.”

Professor McGonagall was now unrolling a large scroll of parchment. At Hogwarts, nearly everything was written on parchment, and Hermione couldn’t recall ever having seen a scrap of regular paper in the whole castle.

“When I call out your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool,” McGonagall said to the row of nervous eleven year olds. “When the hat announces your House, you will go and sit at the appropriate table.”

“Ackerley, Stewart!” she said in her official sounding voice.

A boy walked forward, visibly trembling all over, picked up the ancient hat and nervously placed it on his head, and sat on the stool.”

“RAVENCLAW!” shouted the hat.

Stewart Ackerley took off the hat, and hurried to the Ravenclaw table, where everyone was applauding him. It was such a good feeling, to be wanted by one’s house. When Hermione turned to see who was to be sorted next, she noticed that Harry Potter was still staring at the Ravenclaw table…

“Baddock, Malcolm!”

“SLYTHERIN!”

The table on the other side of the hall erupted with cheers as well. Slytherin had a bad reputation. Fred and George Weasley were hissing softly at Malcolm Baddock as he sat down.

“Branstone, Eleanor!”

“HUFFLEPUFF!”

“Cauldwell, Owen!”“HUFFLEPUFF!”

Hermione remembered her own sorting rather well, how the hat had whispered in her ear, suggesting that Ravenclaw might be a good fit, but when she was certain she wanted Gryffindor that hat had put her there instead. She’d heard a similar story from Harry, that the hat had considered putting him in Slytherin, but he didn’t want to go there, so he went to Gryffindor. She wondered if that was so for everyone. Hufflepuff had very little reputation, so it was hard to image the nervous youngsters before her specifically wished to go there, but maybe she was missing something…

“Creevey, Dennis!”

“GRYFFINDOR!”

Tiny Dennis Creevey, still wearing Hagrid’s massive overcoat, beamed wildly as he took off the hat, and placed it back on the stool. The entire Gryffindor table — and Hagrid as well —erupted in applause now, and Dennis nearly ran to join his brother Colin.

“Colin, I fell in!” he said in a squeaky little voice, climbing onto the bench. “It was brilliant! And something in the water grabbed me and pushed me back in the boat!”

“Wow!” said Dennis, clearly overwhelmed by his recent brush with the giant sea monster.

Hermione turned back to watch the rest of the sorting, while the brothers continued to chat. The first years, some looking more frightened than others, continued to step forward one at a time, and place the hat on their heads. As they did so, the line of students behind it slowly dwindled.

“Oh hurry up,” Ron moaned, grabbing at his stomach.

“Now Ron,” said Nearly Headless Nick, “the Sorting’s much more important than food.”

“‘Course it is, if you’re dead…” snapped Ron.

Choosing to ignore the gab, Nick said “I do hope this year’s batch of Gryffindors are up to scratch,” then he stopped to applaud as “McDonald, Natalie” became a Gryffindor. “We don’t want to break our winning streak, do we?”

Each year at Hogwarts, there was an Inter-House Championship, awarded based on points given out to students by the staff. And for three years now, Gryffindor had won.

“Pritchard, Graham!”

“SLYTHERIN!”

“Quirke, Orla!”

“RAVENCLAW!”

And finally, with “Whitby, Kevin!” (“HUFFLEPUFF!”), the sorting came to an end. Professor McGonagall picked up the hat and the stool, and carried them away with rather less ceremony than they had been brought in.

“About time!” cried Ron, seizing his knife and fork.

Professor Dumbledore had gotten to his feet, and now he was smiling all around the hall, his arms opened wide as he grinned at the students.

“I have only two words to say to you,” said the old venerable wizard, “Tuck in.”

And then the empty serving dishes before them magically filled themselves with heaps and heaps of delicious food. It was how every feast at Hogwarts began, yet it always took Hermione’s breath away at the start-of-term feast, when she was finally back in the castle after a summer at home. She wondered if she would ever get tired of it.

“Hear, hear!” cried Ron and Harry, in unison at the top of their voices, as the food appeared before them. Then they all began to serve themselves, loading up their plates with whatever they liked best. Nearly Headless Nick, ever jealous of the living, looked on mournfully.

“Aaah, ‘at’s be’er,” said Ron, his mouth positively full of mashed potato.

“You’re lucky there’s a feast at all tonight, you know,” said Nearly Headless Nick. “There was trouble in the kitchens earlier.”

“Why? Wha’ ‘appened?” said Harry, his own mouth nearly as full as Ron’s.

Hermione took a bite of chicken, only half listening.

“Peeves, of course,” said Nearly Headless Nick, shaking his head so that it wobbled dangerously. “The usual argument, you know. He wanted to attend the feast — well, it’s quite out of the question, you know what he’s like, utterly uncivilized, can’t see a plate of food without throwing it. We held a ghost’s council — the Fat Friar was all for giving him a chance — but mostly wisely, in my opinion, the Bloody Baron put his foot down.”

The Bloody Baron was the ghost of Slytherin house, a gaunt and silent specter covered in silver bloodstains. He terrified many of the younger students, and he was the only one who could ever control Peeves.

“Yeah, we thought Peeves seemed hacked off about something,” said Ron darkly, looking around the table for something, “So what did he do in the kitchens?”

“Oh, the usual,” said Nearly Headless Nick casually. “Wreaked havoc and mayhem. Pots and pans everywhere. Place swimming in soup. Terrified the house-elves out of their wits—”

At the word house-elves Hermione felt her skin prickle all over. She had been reaching for her pumpkin juice, but she suddenly stopped and the back of her hand brushed the golden goblet… she was only partially aware of it, however, because this was far more urgent.

“There are house-elves here?” she said, vaguely aware that her juice had spilled, but there was magic for that. “Here at Hogwarts?” she demanded of Nearly Headless Nick.

He looked surprised. “Certainly…” he said, “the largest number in any dwelling in Britain, I believe. Over a hundred.”

It had never been mentioned. In three years at Hogwarts this was the first she’d heard of it… even when Harry had befriended Dobby no one had ever mentioned…

“I’ve never seen one!” she said, a little breathlessly.

“Well, they hardly ever leave the kitchen by day, do they? They come out at night to do a bit of cleaning… see to the fires and so on…” Nick was talking as though it were the most normal thing in the world. “I mean, you’re not supposed to see them, are you? That’s the mark of a good house elf, isn’t it, that you don’t know it’s there?”

She thought about it. She didn’t really know all that much about house elves, except that both Dobby and Winky had been severely mistreated, and no one seemed to care. She could bear to think that the same thing was going on at Hogwarts, her beloved Hogwarts! Yet, Nick was so calm, perhaps it was different within the castle.

“But they get paid?” she said, hopefully. “They get holidays, don’t they? And — and sick leave, and pensions, and everything?”

And then Nearly Headless Nick laughed right in her face. He laughed so hard that his ruff slipped and his head flopped to the side, dangling on the inch or so of ghostly skin and muscle that still attached it to his ghostly body. The boys both looked suddenly away from the conversation. Hermione just stared at Nick.

“Sick leave and pensions?” he finally said, pushing his head back into place and securing it once more with his ruff. “House elves don’t want sick leave and pensions!”

It was as though she could see Winky’s pleading, terrified, shaking face, right before her own. She looked down at her plate, her hardly touched dinner, and she felt she was going to be sick. Over a hundred was what Nick had said, a hundred little people like Winky, magically tied to Hogwarts Castle, prevented from disobeying no matter what… all so Hermione could have a comfortable meal. She had quite lost her appetite, and she slowly pushed the plate away.

“Oh c’mon, ‘Er-my-knee!” said Ron, thickly through a bite of Yorkshire pudding. “Oops — sorry, ‘Arry —” he said when he realized he had sprayed Harry with chewed food. He swallowed hard, and looked earnestly at Hermione. “You won’t get them sick leave by starving yourself!” he added.

Even if he was right, she couldn’t eat another bite. “Slave labor, that’s what made this dinner. Slave labor.” the words felt impossible even as she said them. How could it be true? And at Hogwarts, of all places?

Through the rest of the meal, she watched the rain on the windows, and thought about poor Winky, and how she was getting on. No one else seemed very interested in her, or what might become of her next. Harry and Ron ate happily… Perhaps it simply hadn’t sunk in yet how horrible it was. Well, Harry at least would come to his senses, once he thought about poor Dobby and all he had been through. Another loud clap of thunder shook the windows, and lightning flashed across the bewitched ceiling, illuminating the golden plates as the remains of the first course vanished. They were replaced, as they were at every feast, instantly, with puddings.

She just looked at him, wondering how on earth one boy could be so completely clueless.

Finally, mercifully, even the puddings were through, and the last crumbs faded off the plates, leaving them sparkling clear. Albus Dumbledore got to his feet again, and the buzz of chatter filling the Hall ceased. It said something about Dumbledore, that a crowd of excited young people would almost always quite down to listen to him speak.

“So!” he said, smiling around at everyone. “Now that we are all fed and watered…”

Hermione let out a small, involuntary, sigh.

“I must ask once more for your attention, while I give out a few notices.” Dumbledore went on. “Mr. Flinch, the caretaker, has asked me to tell you that the list of objects forbidden inside the castle has this year been extended to include Screaming Yo-yos, Fanged Frisbees, and Ever-Bashing Boomerangs. The full list comprises some four hundred and thirty-seven items, I believe, and can be viewed in Mr. Filch’s office, if anybody would like to check it.”

The corners of Dumbledore’s mouth twitched just ever so slightly. “As ever, I would like to remind you that the forest on the grounds is out-of-bounds to all students, as is the village of Hogsmeade to all below third year.”

“It is also my painful duty to inform you that the Inter-House Quidditch Cup will not take place this year.”

Predictably, there was quite the uproar at this news. Harry Potter nearly shouted “WHAT?” and Fred and George looked like the might fall over. Ron didn’t even play quidditch at school, but he looked equally horrified.

“This is due to an event that will be starting in October,” continued Dumbledore, and the sounds of the dumbfounded students died down again, “and continuing throughout the school year, taking up much of the teachers’ time and energy — but I am sure you will all enjoy it immensely. I have great pleasure in announcing that this year at Hogwarts —”

But at that moment, a great earsplitting roar of thunder drowned out Dumbledore’s voice, and then the doors of the Great Hall opened with a loud bang.

Everyone turned. In the doorway stood a man, leaning upon a long staff, and shrouded in a black traveling cloak. A fork of lightning suddenly flashed across the ceiling. The man lowered his hood, shook out a mane of grizzled, dark gray hair, and then began to walk laboriously toward the other end of the Hall, and the teacher’s table.

There was a dull clunk that echoed through the massive Hall on his every other step. Every set of eyes seemed to be following the man, but his face was still downward, and in shadow. Finally, he reached the end of the top table, and turned right to make his way toward Dumbledore. Another flash of lightning crossed the ceiling, illuminating the Hall.

An audible gasp rang through the crowd of students.

The lightning threw the man’s face into sharp relief, and it wasn’t the sort of face Hermione had expected. It was unlike anything she’d ever seen before, and she wondered how on earth a person could come to look like that. His entire face, all over, was covered in scars, his nose appeared to be missing a piece somehow, and even his mouth looked… damaged. But his eyes were the most arresting of all.

One of his eyes was quite ordinary, it looked dark from this distance, as one would expect. But the other was too large, round as a coin, and a vivid electric blue. And to make it even more alarming, the blue ey was moving ceaselessly, and without blinking, quite independently of the other eye. She remembered reading once, ages ago, that human brains liked symmetry. Well, this man was anything but symmetrical. As the thought that, the blue eye rolled right over, pointing back into the man’s head, and all the students could see the bare whiteness of the opposite side.

She felt Harry squirm by her side.

The stranger reached Dumbledore, and he stretched out a hand that was as badly scarred as his face. Dumbledore shook it, muttering something softly, though she couldn’t quite make out what. The stranger shook his head in reply, and said something in an undertone. Dumbledore nodded, and gestured the man to the empty seat on his right-hand side.

The man took his seat, and shook his mane of gray hair once again. Thought all the food had gone from the other tables, there were a few dishes left on the staff table, and at once he reached for one of them. It was a plate of sausages, and to Hermione’s surprise, he raised them to his nose and sniffed. He then took a small knife out of his pocket, speared a sausage on the end of it, and began to eat. All the while, his bright blue eye was still darting all around the Great Hall.

“May I introduce our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher?” said Dumbledore with a smile into the stunned silence. “Professor Moody.”

It was so silent in the echoey, cavernous, Hall, that you could have heard a pin drop. Then Dumbledore and Hagrid broke into enthusiastic applause, though she noticed the rest of the staff table didn’t join them. Was it his looks, or something else?

“Moody?” Harry said, reaching over Hermione to talk to Ron in an undertone. “Mad-Eye Moody? The one your dad went to help this morning?”

Evidently, Ron and Harry knew something about this new teacher that she had missed. Well, this was a first.

“Must be,” Ron said, leaning in to talk to Harry so she had to lean way back on the bench to get out of the way.

“What happened to him?” she whispered, hoping for some kind of information. And then, in spite of herself, she said, “what happened to his face?” for as rude as it was to stare, she could not stop looking into that scarred and battered face.

“Dunno.” was all Ron whispered in reply. He was peering up at Moody as well.

For his part, Professor Moody seemed indifferent to the reaction of both the students and the other teachers. Ignoring the jug of pumpkin juice in front of him, he reached into his traveling cloak, pulled out a hip flask, and took a long draught from hit. Hermione thought she saw Professor McGonagall raise her eyebrows just slightly, but she couldn’t be sure.

In the piercing silence, Dumbledore cleared his throat.

“As I was saying,” he said, with a smile as though there had been no interruption at all, “we are to have the honor of hosting a very exciting event over the coming months, an event that has not been held for over a century. It is my very great pleasure to inform you that the Triwizard Tournament will be taking place at Hogwarts this year.”

“I am not joking, Mr. Weasley,” he said, still grinning, “though now that you mention it, I did hear an excellent one over the summer about a troll, a hag, and a leprechaun who all go into a bar…”

Now it was Professor McGonagall’s turn to clear her throat.

“Er — but maybe this is not the time… no…” he looked down at his hands, “where was I? Ah yes, the Triwizard Tournament… well, some of you will not know what this tournament involves, so I hope those who do know will forgive me for giving a short explanation, and allow their attention to wander freely.”

Hermione bristled involuntarily. He meant muggle-borns, of course. He meant that witches and wizards with non-magical families couldn’t possibly know the great history of dangerous and lethal sporting events in the wizarding world…

“The Triwizard Tournament was first established some seven hundred years ago as a friendly competition between the three largest European schools of wizardry: Hogwarts, Beaubatons, and Durmstrang. A champion was selected to represent each school, and the three champions competed in three magical tasks. The schools took it in turns to host the tournament once every five years, and it was generally agreed to be a most excellent way of establishing ties between young witches and wizards of different nationalities — until, that is, the death toll mounted so high that the tournament was discontinued.”

“Death toll?” she said. Because truth be told, she had only read a little bit about the Triwizard Tournament, and Dumbledore was making it out to be even more dangerous than she had realized. However, she looked around her, and no one else looked anything but excited. She couldn’t, for the life of her, understand it. Harry and Ron were both grinning like idiots, and most of the Gryffindor table seemed to be whispering to one and other.

“There have been several attempts over the centuries to reinstate the tournament,” Dumbledore continued, “none of which has been very successful. However, our own departments of International Magical Cooperation and Magical Game and Sports have decided the time is ripe for another attempt. We have worked hard over the summer to ensure that this time, no champion will find himself or herself in mortal danger.”

“The heads of Beauxbatons and Durmstrang will be arriving with their short-listed contenders in October, and the selection of the three champions will take place at Halloween. An impartial judge will decide which students are most worthy to compete for the Triwizard Cup, the glory of their school, and a thousand Galleons personal prize money.”

“I’m going for it!” Fred Weasley hissed down the table, his face lit up with enthusiasm at the prospect of such glory and riches. He was far from the only one in the hall announcing his intentions to his friends. For herself, Hermione never once considered trying to represent all of Hogwarts. How could she? But it would be nice, perhaps, to meet a few witches and wizards who weren’t from Britain. Yes, that would be a bit of perspective.

“Eager though I know all of you will be to bring the Triwizard Cup to Hogwarts,” he said, “the heads of the participating schools, along with the Ministry of Magic, have agreed to impose an age restriction on contenders this year. Only students who are of age — that is to say, seventeen years or older — will be allowed to put forward their names for consideration. This —” Dumbledore had to raise his voice slightly, to speak over the sudden rush of noise as all throughout the Hall those would-be champions who were not yet seventeen made their displeasure known, “— is a measure we feel is necessary, given that the tournament tasks will still be difficult and dangerous, whatever precautions we take, and it is highly unlikely that students below sixth and seventh year will be able to cope with them. I will personally be ensuring that no underage student hoodwinks our impartial judge into making them Hogwarts champion.” He looked right at the Gryffindor table, right at Fred and George, who both looked furious. “I therefore beg you not to waste your time submitting yourself if you are under seventeen.”

The twins glowered back at the smiling Dumbledore.

“The delegations from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang will be arriving in October and remaining for the greater part of this school year. I know that you will all extend every courtesy to our foreign guests while they are here with us, and will give your whole-hearted support to the Hogwarts champion when he or she is selected. And now, it is late, and I know how important it is to you all to be alert and rested as you enter your lessons tomorrow morning.” he smirked somewhat sardonically. “Bedtime! Chop chop!”

And then Professor Dumbledore sat down again, and turned once again to talk to Professor — Mad Eye — Moody. There was a great scraping of benches as hundreds of students all rose to their feet, and swarmed towards the double doors, headed for the entrance hall, and then their respective house dormitories.

“They can’t do that!” said George Weasley, who had not yet joined the crowd moving toward the doors, but was still standing glaring at Dumbledore. “We’re seventeen in April, why can’t we have a shot?”

“They’re not stopping me entering,” said Fred, with an ugly scowl. “The champions’ll get to do all sorts of stuff you’d never be allowed to do normally. And a thousand Galleons prize money!”

Ron was standing near his brothers, also not moving, looking dreamy and far away. “Yeah… Yeah, a thousand Galleons…”

“Come on,” she said, inching towards the huge double doors, slowly beckoning them all forward, “we’ll be the only ones left here if you don’t move.”

And to her astonishment, they actually followed her. Soon she was walking with Fred, George, Ronald, and Harry, as they debated the ways in which Dumbledore might stop those who were under seventeen from entering the tournament.

“Who’s this impartial judge who’s going to decide who he champions are?” Harry asked the others.

“Dunno,” said Fred thoughtfully, “ but it’s them we’ll have to fool. I reckon a couple of drops of Aging Potion might do it, George…”

“Dumbledore knows you’re not of age, though,” said Ron.

“Yeah, but he’s not the one who decides who the champion is, is he?” said Fred shrewdly. “Sounds to me like once this judge knows who wants to enter, he’ll choose the best from each school and never mind how old they are.” Fred was probably right, though privately Hermione hoped he wasn’t. “Dumbledore’s trying to stop us giving our names.” he said.

“People have died, though!” she said, as they walked through a door concealed behind a tapestry, and started up another staircase on their way to the Gryffindor common room.

“Yeah,” said Fred, dismissively, “but that was years ago, wasn’t it? Anyway, where’s the fun without a bit of risk? Hey, Ron, what if we find out how to get ‘round Dumbledore? Fancy entering?”

“I definitely haven’t,” came Neville’s voice from behind them, catching up. It was the most sensible thing she’d heard since Dumbledore had finished making his announcements.

“I expect my gran’d want to me try, though…” Neville continued, sounding a bit gloomy. “She’s always going on aobut how I should be upholding the family honor. I’ll just have to — oops!”

And Neville’s right foot sank clear through a step, halfway up the staircase. There were quite a few of these trick stairs at Hogwarts, and while many of the older students had learned precisely where they were (and tended to jump over this particular step) Neville was always forgetting exactly which one was which. He gave an embarrassed smile as Ron and Harry seized him under the armpits and pulled him out. Meanwhile, a suit of armor at the top of the stairs creaked and clanked, laughing wheezily.

“Shut it, you,” said Ron, banging down the armor’s visor hard as they passed. Finally, they made their way to the entrance to Gryffindor Tower, which was concealed behind a large portrait of a fat lady in a pink silk dress.

“Password?” she queried.

“Balderdash,” said George with confidence. Then he added, “a prefect downstairs told me.” The password changed at the start of each term, so many students didn’t yet know what it was.

The portrait swung inward, to reveal the wide hole in the wall which was the entrance. They all took it in turns to climb through, and were met with the sounds of a warm, crackling fire. As Hermione pulled herself into the circular common room, outfitted with squashy armchairs and old battered tables, she remembered that that fire had almost certainly been lit by a house elf.

“Slave labor…” she said under her breath.

She was embarrassed to admit that she had never given such comforts much thought before. When she had first started at Hogwarts, four years ago, it had all been part of the magical charm of the place. She hadn’t grown up with any servants or even a visiting cleaning lady, and she’d always been part of the household chores back at home, but here at Hogwarts there never seemed to be any such work to be done. If she had ever wondered how the sheets were always so fresh, the fires always bright and merry, the dishes always spotless, she supposed it was just part of the magic of it all. It was a shock to learn that, far from a few benign spells that kept things tidy and in order, it was a different sort of magic: an entire race of magical beings, enslaved to do the work no humans in the castle wanted.

Ronald and Harry were both looking at her with trepidation. She knew they didn’t want to talk about it.

“Well, goodnight then.” she said, as normally as she could, and made her way towards the staircase on the righthand side of the room, which led up to the girls’ dormitories.

Up the spiral stairs she marched, trying hard not to notice her hungry stomach, until she found the door marked “fourth year.”

It was a stone room, with three rather large four poster beds with crimson hangings. It seemed to be just the right size for the three beds that occupied the room, and Hermione supposed that it would have magically expanded had their been more girls in Gryffindor that year.

Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil, the two other occupants of the dormitory, were already there. When Hermione entered, they glanced at her, and waved silently. They were best friends, and they were sitting on Lavender’s bed in their pajamas, chatting about their summers.

Somehow, over the summer with her eagerness to return to school, she had forgot how awkward she always felt around Lavender and Parvati. It wasn’t just that they both came from wizarding families, though that was certainly true (and Parvati’s twin sister, Padma, was at Hogwarts as well, in Ravenclaw house). It was that Lavender and Parvati both made sense in Gryffindor, and they made sense together. It made all the sense in the world for two fourteen year old girls to be happily chatting together, about where they’d gone on holiday, cute muggle boys they’d seen, the latest fashions in dress robes.

Whereas, Hermione Granger? She didn’t exactly make sense anywhere.

Her trunk was already at the foot of her four-poster, and Crookshanks was curled up in the very center of the bed, as though he was trying to take up as much room as possible. As quickly as possible, trying to make herself small, she pulled off her long witch’s robes and threw on her nightgown. Then she climbed into her bed, gave a falsely cheery “goodnight!” to the room at large, and closed the bed curtains.

In the dark of the crimson hangings, she pushed her snoring cat a little to one side, and cuddled up to him. He was a weird cat. Instead of scampering away, he gave a little grunt, and then started purring. The bed was immensely comfortable. She hadn’t realized how tired she was, not until now.

Just before she drifted off to sleep, she thought “I’ve got to do something about all those poor elves.

***

Deconstruction / Notes

Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness.

This chapter is 17 pages in the google doc I’m working on it in and let me just say, it’s too long. I’m not sure what could have been done about that exactly, because obviously there’s a lot to fit in at the feast and what have you. But my god, seventeen pages. I just checked, and chapter four was a whopping SEVEN.

Ok, we talked about this in the comments last week (if you don’t read the comments, you may want to, lots of good analysis in there, and not just mine) but Crookshanks. Where the hell is Crookshanks? I added a Crookshanks bit in here, because it desperately needed it, but it isn’t in the original text. He’s in Hermione’s robes, scratching her, not riding in his traveling basket for reasons we are never told… and then he’s just… gone. I don’t have my other books handy at the moment, but I believe at some point we’re told that the luggage is magically transported to the dormitories for them. Ok, fine. But is a cat luggage? An owl in a cage, I guess I can kind of see… But a cat? And not just a cat, but a loose cat? The treatment of pets at Hogwarts is really troubling, once you actually look at it and try to parse out what is happening.

Also, I love Professor McGonagall and so does Hermione, and I won’t hear a word against her. Just so you all know. I loved writing McGonagall here and I look forward to more scenes with her because she is generally reasonable and responsible and in my dreams she is promoted to Headmistress immediately because she is already doing the work goddamn it.

Other than that, there’s potentially a lot to unpack in this chapter, and I frankly don’t have the bandwidth to get into the teeny tiny details of everything. I think many of the descriptions of Moody are borderline ableist (except the ones that are blatantly ableist) and I think that the treatment of Hermione as being nervous about the Triwizard Tournament is basically gaslighting. In this chapter we have these two things — the Triwizard Tournament and professor Moody — introduced for the first time. Both are going to seriously drive the plot for the rest of the book, so we’ll have plenty of time to pick them apart.

Instead, we need to talk about house elves yet again. Because this is important, and I think that this chapter, the moment when Hermione realizes that there are, in fact, house elves living and working at Hogwarts, is a huge character defining moment for Hermione Granger. Hermione may be brainy as all get out, but she also loves justice and fair play as much as any Hufflepuff. And she loves Hogwarts damn near as much as Harry Potter does, and she assumed that the things she had learned about it were true and that it was a good and fair place where she could feel (relatively) safe. It is therefore major for her to discover, now, at the start of her fourth year of school, that the school is entirely reliant on a slave class of non-human people.

You may be wondering how Hogwarts can even have house elves, since as they’ve been previously defined they are bound to serve one family forever more. Who is the master of the Hogwarts house elves? Put those thoughts out of your mind, we will never have an answer. This is just going to be one of those incredibly frustrating thing that makes no sense and, if you are like me, you’ll stay up late trying to find a way you can make it make sense. So far, I have been unsuccessful. Institutional house elves, as far as I can tell, make no sense with the mythology of elves we are given. The only way they would make any sense is if they were all more or less free, not serving at Hogwarts because they are bound but because they enjoy serving in a beautiful castle. But we’ll find out later that this is very much not the case. No explanation about who these elves “belong” to will ever be given.

Hermione will make grave errors in her activism for house elves, of course. But right now, she is just a fourteen year old girl who suddenly discovered that the place she loves isn’t so lovely after all.

Harry Potter, of course, is discovering this for the very first time as well. He saw the horrible conditions Dobby was in, so he knows how bad things can get for elves. He, at least privately, is aware that the treatment of Winky has been incredibly unfair. Yet he is shown to have no emotional reaction whatsoever to the news that a hundred house elves are bound to the castle he views as his home.

As an aside here, when I first read this series, I didn’t actually like it at all. And one of the reasons I didn’t like it was that there are so many moments like this. The whole series is filled with revelations that really shouldn’t be revelations, things that seem like they should just be known. Like in book three, when everyone consistently refers to dementors as “the Azkaban guards” until the word “dementor” is uttered once and then they are never once referred to in such a way again. If Nearly Headless Nick can so casually mention the house elves now, it seems very unlikely that they’ve never come up in three years. These books are positively full of moments like these, big reveals of things that “have been this way all along” but our POV character never knew for… reasons. Harry’s outsider status gives the reader a glimpse into the magical world that makes sense to them, but the formulaic nature of these reveals starts to feel a bit tired a few books in. It’s like each book requires that early on, we learn a new thing about the magical world, and by the end of the book it will play a major role. The dementors were certainly like that, as was Dobby himself, and we’ll see a similar pattern with the Thestrals in book five.

But here it doesn’t really work, even as that sort of cheap trick. Why? Because the existence of house elves at Hogwarts will always only be a side story, a minor interest of Hermione’s that everyone else won’t be bothered to think too much about. Hermione Granger’s obsession with house elves will become more and more of a joke as time goes on, and less and less integral to the plot (at least in this book).

So, we’ve set up this massive reveal that actually doesn’t make terribly much sense. And we’re only going to use it to… make fun of the nerdy girl.

And it starts now. Here is Hermione Granger, a fourteen year old idealist and intellectual, a girl desperately trying to fit in and make sense in the magical world while also being true to herself, a girl trying to strike an impossible balance. And after seeing a house elf cruely abused — what was it, a week ago now? — she’s suddenly learned that her entire school, her beloved temple of learning, runs on the labor of house elves who are unpaid and enslaved. She is overcome with emotion, suddenly, she can’t eat. This isn’t a case of teenage girls not eating in books because girls don’t eat when they’re upset! She’s just learned that the meal that is before her, the luxury of a feast, is the product of slavery. The Hogwarts kitchen is filled with a hundred Winkys. She’s realizing that she is complicit in oppression, and she suddenly cannot bring herself to participate.

That’s a very reasonable response, as far as I’m concerned, even if it isn’t sustainable. It brings to mind the saying “no ethical consumption under capitalism” for me, because if you try to consume ethically, eventually you’ll be overwhelmed with how impossible it is (or at least I am, I may be projecting). Tomorrow morning, Hermione will realize that this is the food that is available at Hogwarts, that circumventing that system is impossible, and won’t help dismantle it. But for now, this evening, she can’t bring herself to take another bite.

And Ronald Weasley, a young man who is supposedly her friend, mocks her for this. The criticism of Hermione is always that she’s too bookish, too well read (until you need her massive store of information, of course). But here we have a very earnest display of emotion and passion, a simple response that isn’t intellectual or very well thought out at all, it’s automatic, “if I think that’s wrong, I can’t do it.” And Ron thinks that’s very funny. It’s mean, it’s cruel, and I think it betrays something about our trio of friends here. Hermione is friends with Harry, and Ron is friends with Harry, but are Ron and Hermione friends? Or do they just tolerate each other to keep Harry’s friendship, until they eventually develop feelings for each other?

Ok, one more thing before my brain has to leave the potterverse for awhile. Let’s talk about the dormitories.

So typically, for these re-writes, I’m not looking a ton of stuff up, and especially not online. I’m going from my memory of the series, and from the physical books themselves, and primarily just the chapter at hand. But every once in awhile, I have a question and I need it answered before I can move forward.

That happened at bed time. Because I could not, for the life of me, remember who all slept in Hermione’s dormitory. I could think of Parvati and Lavender, but it seemed like I must be missing someone. So, I googled. Harry Potter wikia lists the known dormitory residents as:

Oh. I tried to look on Pottermore to see if this was confirmed anywhere, but I couldn’t find anything at all about the girls’ dormitory residents. But if it is true, if it was written to be a dorm with five pupils in it (just like on the boys’ side) and two of them are never mentioned by name in text, that’s a problem. Hermione is Harry’s second best friend in the universe, it seems utterly impossible that she could sleep in the same room as four people, and over the course of six years at school, Harry only ever learns the names of two of them. And even without that, they’re in Gryffindor in the same house, which means they have classes together every single day. So what we have here is either a case of very very bad writing (oh, I guess there are more girls, Harry can’t be bothered about them) or a case of the fandom assuming that there couldn’t possibly be only three girls in the dormitory.

And this is one of those cases, where for this project, as a writer, I had to make a decision. And I just couldn’t put two more girls in that dorm and otherwise keep the story as-is. There was no possible way it could have worked, and anyway, variation in class sizes does make a bit of sense.

So for the purposes of our story here, there are only three fourth year Gryffindor girls. Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil are, of course, best friends. So Hermione is, once again, isolated.

Hermione Granger And The Goblet Of Sexism

Chapter Eleven, Aboard The Hogwarts Express

Next morning, Hermione woke up early to help Ginny put the finishing touches on her packing. Then she had a bit of toast in the kitchen before anyone else was up (except of course Mrs. Weasley, Mrs. Weasley seemed to always be awake). She went out into the garden in the rain (for it was still coming down in buckets) to look for her cat, and got her hair positively soaked, only to find Crookshanks had taken up residence in sitting room anyhow. Pushing clumps of wet hair out of her eyes, she scooped the massive cat up under the armpits, and carried him off to Ginny’s room, so she wouldn’t have to search for him last minute.

She got the last of Ginny’s quills sorted neatly into her trunk, and started to fold up her camp bed.

Ginny breathed a sigh of “thanks Hermione, I owe you, honestly!”

“It’s really no trouble!” Hermione said, now rummaging in her own trunk. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d really like to read this last bit, and I doubt very much those boys will give me very much chance on the train.”

Ginny giggled, and Hermione sat cross-legged on the floor, and happily read The Standard Book Of Spells Grade 4 until Mrs. Weasley called them to leave.

Dragging her trunk down the stairs, she heard Percy’s voice in the kitchen. “I just can’t justify taking more time off at the moment,” he was saying. “Mr. Crouch is really starting to rely on me.”

“Yeah, you know what, Percy?” George said rather seriously. “I reckon he’ll know your name soon.”

Soon three ordinary taxis pulled up to the rain-drenched burrow, to take them into London. She overheard Mrs. Weasley whispering to Harry, “Arthur tried to borrow Ministry cars for us, but there weren’t any to spare… Oh dear, they don’t look happy, do they?”

She wished she’d known, perhaps she could have been of some help. The taxi drivers were struggling to load all of the heavy trunks into the cars, but Pigwidgeon was making an awful racket. And of course, they had no way to know that the fireworks that went off when Fred’s trunk sprang open were Filibuster’s Fabulous No-Heat, Wet-Start Fireworks… and neither did Crookshanks… who unfortunately panicked and tried to crawl up the leg of the man carrying him.

She piled into the back of a car with Harry, Ron, and Crookshanks (who was still quite shaken up) and did her best to stop him from scratching anyone else. In that, she failed. Once they were out of the taxi, however, she was able to get him to curl up in her jacket as she dragged her trunk across the busy road. She was soaked by the time they got there, and wondered if her hair would ever be dry again.

But soon enough they were inside King’s Cross Station, and heading for the magical platform — platform 9 and ¾ — that the magical community used to get to and from Hogwarts. She’d ridden the train to school three times before, the first two years she was taken by her parents (who were quite as nervous as she had been, to be in the strange magical world), and last year she had accompanied the Weasley family and Harry. The group was so large, they had to go in groups to get onto the magical platform. First it was herself, Harry, and Ron, who leaned as casually as they could nto the solid barrier dividing platforms nine and ten, trying not to attract the attention of passersby. As they leaned, they felt the barrier give way, and suddenly platform 9 and ¾ materialized before their eyes.

The Hogwarts Express was a gleaming scarlet steam engine, and like most things in the wizarding world, it looked incredibly old for no particular reason. Witches and wizards did seem to adopt to muggle technology, of course, after all there had been a wizarding community for centuries before the invention of steam engines. But they seemed to adapt to new things very very slowly, and in a piecemeal kind of way. Most of the witches and wizards she knew were still afraid of electric lights, or at the very least viewed them as ridiculously useless, for example. And she’d tried many times to explain why a telephone was actually faster — and sometimes more useful — than sending a letter by flying bird… but no one would ever listen to her.She supposed in another century there would be an ancient rotary phone in the headmaster’s office in Hogwarts, and the thought made her giggle.

Ron’s owl, Pigwidgeon, was hopping around excitedly in his cage, seemingly delighted to see so many other owls about. All around them there were other students with their parents, stowing their luggage and saying their goodbyes.

“Come on then,” she said to Ron and Harry, “let’s find seats.” And the two boys nodded, and they headed for the train while the rest of the Weasleys slowly made their way through the barrier to the platform. Once they’d saved seats and got their trunks and things on the luggage rack, they headed back out to say goodbye to Mrs. Weasley, as well as Bill and Charlie, who had come to see them off.

“I might be seeing you all sooner than you think,” said Charlie, while Ginny hugged him tightly.

“Why?” asked Fred.

“You’ll see,” Charlie said with a mischievous grin. “Just don’t tell Percy I mentioned it… it’s ‘classified information, until such time as the Ministry sees fit to release it,’ after all.”

“Yeah, I sort of wish I were back at Hogwarts this year,” said Bill, hands in his pockets, looking almost wistfully at the train.

“WHY?” said George impatiently.

“You’re going to have an interesting year,” said Bill, looking like a schoolboy even with his long hair and trendy clothing, “I might even get time off to come and watch a bit of it…”

“A bit of what?” Ron begged.

But at that moment, the whistle blew, and Mrs. Weasley ushered them all towards the train doors in a hurry.

“Thanks for having us to stay, Mrs. Weasley,” Hermione said once they’d all climbed aboard, and leaned out the windows for a final goodbye.

“Yeah, thanks for everything, Mrs. Weasley.” Harry chimed in.

“Oh it was my pleasure, dears,” she said, and Hermione thought she might sort of miss Mrs. Weasley. “I’d invite you for Christmas, but… well, I expect you’re all going to want to stay at Hogwarts, what with… one thing and another.”

“Tell us what’s happening at Hogwarts!” Fred shouted out the window at his mother and two eldest brothers, but they were speeding away from them, shrinking in the distance. Then he added “What rules are they changing?” in a quieter, hopeless voice.

The three Weasleys left on the platform smiled and waved. Then, before the train had quite rounded the corner, all three of them disapparated.

Hermione, Ron, and HArry headed back to the compartment they’d chosen earlier. The thick rain splattering the windows made it very difficult to see out of them at all. Pigdwidgeon’s cage was on the seat next to Ron, and the tiny owl was still hooting away merrily. Ron rummaged in his trunk for something, and then threw something gaudy and maroon in color over the top of the cage to muffle the noise.

“Bagman wanted to tell us what’s happening at Hogwarts,” he said, sinking into the seat next to Harry with a frown, maybe to get even further from the excitable bird. “At the World Cup, remember?”

Hermione heard a faintly familiar voice from the compartment next to theirs, but she couldn’t quite make it out.

“…But my own mother won’t say!” Ron went on, loudly, “Wonder what —”

“Shh!” she whispered at him, pressing her finger to her lips and pointing dramatically toward the next compartment so Ron couldn’t miss the message. Both boys seemed to cotton on, and turned to listen.

“… Father actually considered sending me to Durmstrang rather than hogwarts, you know.” said the drawling voice of Draco Malfoy. “He knows the headmaster, you see. Well, you know his opinion of Dumbledore — the man’s such a Mudblood-lover — and Durmstrang doesn’t admit that sort of riffraff. But Mother didn’t like the idea of me going to school so far away. Father says Durmstrang takes a far more sensible line than Hogwarts about the Dark Arts. Durmstrang students actually learn them, not just the defense rubbish we do…”

There it was, Draco Malfoy wished he could have been taught dark magic at school. She got up, slid the compartment door closed as quietly as she could, and sat back down. At least now she wouldn’t have to hear him.

“So he thinks Durmstrang would have suited him, does he?” she said, trying to control the volume of her voice. “I wish he had gone, then we wouldn’t have to put up with him.

“Durmstrang’s another wizarding school?” Harry asked.

“Yes, and it’s got a horrible reputation.” she said. “According to An Appraisal of Magical Education in Europe, it puts a lot of emphasis on the Dark Arts.”

She raised her eyebrows. It was one thing for Harry not to know about magical education outside of Britain, but surely Ron must be a bit more aware of it. “Well,” she said politely, “nobody knows, do they?”

“Er — why not?” said Harry Potter.

“There’s traditionally been a lot of rivalry between all the magic schools.” she explained. “Durmstrang and Beauxbatons like to conceal their whereabouts so nobody can steal their secrets.”

“Come off it!” Ron laughed. “Durmstrang’s got to be about the same size as Hogwarts — how are you going to hide a great big castle?”

“Just you, then,” Ron said rudely. “So go on — how d’you hide a place like Hogwarts?”

Ignoring the rudeness as best she could, Hermione went on to explain that magic spells existed to the boy who had lived all his life around witches and wizards. “It’s bewitched,” she said, aware of how ridiculous she must sound. “If a muggle looks at it, all they see is a molder old ruin with a sign over the entrance saying DANGER, DO NOT ENTER, UNSAFE.”

“So…” said Ron, evidently thinking it over, “Durmstrang’ll just look like a ruin to an outsider too?”

“Maybe,” she shrugged, “or it might have Muggle-repelling charms on it, like the World Cup stadium. And to keep foreign wizards from finding it, they’ll have made it Unplottable —”

“Come again?”

Hermione looked from Harry, to Ron, and back again. “Well,” she said slowly, “you can enchant a building so it’s impossible to plot on a map, can’t you?”

“Er… if you say so.” Harry said.

“But,” she went on, trying not to show her surprise and hurt his feelings, “I think Durmstrang must be somewhere in the far north. Somewhere very cold, because they’ve got fur capes as part of their uniforms.”

“Ah!” said Ron, his tone changing at once. “Think of the possibilities… It would’ve been so easy to push Malfoy off a glacier and make it look like an accident… Shame his mother likes him.”

As the train moved farther north, the rain became, if possible, even heavier. The sky was so dark and the windows so steamy that the lanterns were lit by midday. It was nice to be riding the train to school with her friends again, away from the bustle of the Weasley household. When the lunch trolley came rattling along the corridor, Harry jumped to his feet and ran to the compartment door. He came back with a large stack of Cauldron Cakes, which the three of them shared.

In the afternoon a few of their fellow students stopped by their compartment for a chat. Hermione knew that Seamus Finnigan and Dean Thomas were really there to see Harry and Ron, and not her, but she tried her best not to think of it. At the very least, when Neville Longbottom came into the compartment, he looked genuinely pleased to see her, saying “Hello Hermione, have a good holiday?”

Neville was a kind boy, forgetful and a bit foolish, but over the years of helping him with his work in potions lessons, she’d become quite fond of him. He’d been brought up by his grandmother, who was very strict and quite hard on him. She suspected that some of his trouble in school might be nothing more than a lack of self esteem.

But even Neville was not immune to the other boys’ endless discussion of the Quidditch World Cup. With five boys in the compartment reliving the match over and over again — and Seamus Ireland rosette feebly squeaking the names of the Irish players still — it was positively impossible to get a word in.

“Gran didn’t want to go,” Neville said, sounding heartbroken to be left out of the fun. “Wouldn’t buy tickets It sounded amazing though.”

Hermione realized that she would have a chance to read on the train after all, and hastily opened her copy of The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 4.

Several moments later, however, her reading was interrupted by a familiar rude and drawling voice, coming from the compartment door, which Dean and Seamus had left ajar. She didn’t quite catch what the voice said.

“Don’t remember asking you to join us, Malfoy,” Harry said.

Through the predictable exchange that followed, Hermione did her best to focus on her book, but it was impossible. First, Malfoy snatched the weird bit of maroon fabric off of Pigwidgeon’s cage… and it turned out to be very old fashioned dress robes, for formal wizarding gatherings. Hermione recalled seeing that style in one of her books on wizarding history, but they were far from the current wizarding fashion. Draco Malfoy seemed positively delighted, crying “Look at this!” to Crabbe and Goyle (his cronies had evidently followed him in).

“Weasley, you weren’t thinking of wearing these, were you? I mean — they were very fashionable in about eighteen ninety…”

“So…” Malfoy said, “going to enter, Weasley? Going to try and bring a bit of glory to the family name? There’s money involved as well, you know… you’d be able to afford some decent robes if you won…”

“What are you talking about?” snapped Ron.

“Are you going to enter?” Malfoy repeated. “I suppose you will, Potter? You never miss a chance to show off, do you?”

Hermione sighed, and looked up over her book. “Either explain what you’re on about or go away, Malfoy.” she said.

“Don’t tell me you don’t know?” Malfoy said, his voice positively dripping with happiness. “You’ve got a father and a brother at the Ministry and you don’t even know? My God, my father told me about it ages ago… heard it from Cornelius Fudge. But then, Father’s always associated with the top people at the Ministry… Maybe your father’s too junior to know about it, Weasley… yes… they probably don’t talk about important stuff in front of him…”

Then, in fits of laughter, Malfoy left the compartment with Crabbe and Goyle. Ron immediately got to his feet, and slammed the compartment door shut so hard that the glass shattered everywhere.

“Ron!” she said, setting her book aside to pull out her wand. “Reparo!” she said, performing a very basic charm which cause the shards of glass to fly back together into a single pane in the door once again, before they got scattered too far. It was against wizarding law for witches and wizards in training to do magic outside of school, but no one cared about on the train.

“Well… making it look like he knows everything and we don’t…” Ron said moodily. “Father’s always associated with the top people at the Ministry… Dad could’ve got a promotion any time… he just likes it where he is…”

“Him!” he shouted, “Get to me!? As if!” And then he picked up one of the remaining Cauldron Cakes, and squashed it into a pulp in his fist. Hermione blinked hard. There was no use talking to him when he was like this.

Ronald stayed in a bad mood for the rest of the journey. As much as Malfoy hated Hermione for being muggle-born and Harry for being famous, he hated Ron Weasley for being poor. And though he’d never admit it, Ron was very self conscious about his family’s position in the wizarding world, which, Hermione reminded herself, was the only world he really knew.

But soon enough they were changing into their school robes, and shortly after that the Hogwarts Express was pulling into Hogsmeade station. It was pitch black now, but that was the only thing that had changed, the rain was still coming down in buckets. Hermione carefully bundled Crookshanks into her cloak before stepping off the train, maybe she could keep him dry enough to avoid getting another nasty scratch.

Out on the platform, she lifted her eyes long enough to see Hagrid, the gigantic gamekeeper and Care of Magical Creatures teacher, waving enthusiastically at Harry. “See yeh at the feast if we don’ drown!” he boomed, and then he went back to corralling the first year students. It was traditional for Hagrid to take the first year students to the castle by crossing the lake in a series of small boats.

“Ooooh, I wouldn’t fancy crossing the lake in this weather!” she said, with a little shiver. Harry and Ron were too waterlogged to respond, and they walked onward, to the hundred horseless carriages that waited outside the station. She climbed into one along with Harry, Ron, and Neville, and opened her cloak to check on her poor cat. He was mostly dry, but in very bad spirits.

Soon enough, the carriage lurched forward. Crookshanks finally did scratch Hermione, in surprise from the sudden movement. And then they began to move in earnest, along the road with all the other carriages to Hogwarts Castle.

***

Mrs. Weasley orders ordinary muggle taxis to take her entire wizarding family to London to catch the magic train to magic school. Sure, why not? I mean, they wouldn’t get ministry cars, so what choice does she have?It isn’t as though they could have traveled to the Leaky Cauldron via flu powder, and then taken the bus to King’s Cross station (I have never been to London and I don’t know how far that would be, but they’d be in the same city, at least).It isn’t as though Portkeys could have been set up to get wizarding families safely to the magic platform to go to magic school.It isn’t as though side-along apparition exists and therefore the older ones could have taken the younger ones along with them (though it’s entirely possible that Rowling just hadn’t thought of side-along apparition yet, it doesn’t come up until book six).So our wizarding family, the father of which has a condescending obsession with muggles that basically amounts to “awe they’re cute, helpless fools,” has no choice but to risk the exposure of the wizarding world (which is supposedly a very big deal) by transporting six teenagers with trunks, two owls, and a cat who is apparently just… loose… by taxi. But hey, at least they’re all wearing jeans or whatever to blend in, right? Makes…. Sense?

While we’re on the topic, this is a bit out of the way, but why do wizard children wear muggle clothes during the summer holidays? Why is this generational? Arthur and Molly wear robes most of the time, and appear to have one or two muggle outfits they use only when they have to interact with the muggle world (this makes zero sense in Arthur’s case, he should *always* be ready to interact with the muggle world because of both his line of work and his personal interests, hell, you’d expect him to collect button down shirts or soemthing). But the kids are cool and modern so they wear muggle clothing seemingly every second of their lives that they don’t have to be in school robes. Why? Where do they get them from? Did their parents put them in muggle clothing when they were small? Is it an acquired teenage fashion? For wizarding children like the Weasleys, this makes no sense at all. And there were muggle-born witches and wizards, as well as “half-bloods,” in Arthur and Molly’s generation as well, so why should they be so rigidly attached to wizard clothing? This has always bothered me, and frankly the movies make it even worse, reducing the Hogwarts uniform (described in-text as “plain work robes, black”) to a sort of preppy boarding school uniform that occasionally has a loose flowy robe thrown over it. I wanted to see some weird magic people, and all I got were all these ties and sweater vests.

But anyway, yeah, the Weasley’s take taxis to London, because why not. They obvious have to, there are no viable other options since they couldn’t get private official government magic cars. Ok. I’ll remember that next time someone says something about the things muggles do to “work around” their not having magic.

Now, let’s talk about our buddy Ronald Weasley, isn’t he just the cutest? Ron Weasley is a wizard, raised by wizards, in a family of wizards. All of his aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents were wizards (I believe in the first book it is mentioned that there might be one squib in the family but “we never talk about him” which is just charming). He goes to magic school. He takes the magic train to magic school every year, this is his fourth year of magic school. In Ron Weasley’s world, it is normal for newspapers and posters and books to have moving photographs. It is normal for your mother to use magic to make dinner. It is normal for damn near everyone to always carry a wand. And his father works for the Ministry of Magic, which is primarily concerned with making sure non-magic folk don’t find out about all of this magic. He just went to the Quidditch World Cup, and quite possibly overheard his father explain the spells that had been put on the moor to keep muggles out. Not only that, but his father puts spells on various things (some of which are illegal, like the car) all the damn time.

But it has never occurred to him that the magic school he goes to might be magically enchanted by magic spells to magically keep non-magic people from just wandering up to the gates. Not only does he not know this, he doesn’t believe it when it’s explained to him.Here’s the thing.

It is very very tempting to wave this away as bad writing. And it is, to some degree, bad writing. Is this just another case of Harry and Ron taking turns asking stupid questions to get info from Hermione to the reader? Maybe… but I also believe it to be in character for Ronald Weasley.

Ron Weasley is an anti-intellectual. He is (or at least he grows to be, throughout the books, for our purposes here in book four he is) basically against knowing stuff. Ron’s dream is to know just enough stuff, the bare minimum, to become a wizard cop. But if he can’t get it, he isn’t surprised. He’s not going to try to hard. Knowing stuff is for nerds. And knowing stuff about school is for super duper nerds. And the fact that Hermione read a book about the school that they go to which wasn’t required to be read by said school makes her the brainiest of brains, worthy of constant mockery.

Ron Weasley doesn’t know that Hogwarts is magically protected from muggles because he has literally never thought about muggles when he wasn’t being told “there might be muggles here, watch out and don’t scream ‘I AM A WIZARD KID’ at the top of your lungs.” And because wizards are generally pretty lax about hiding themselves from muggles, and count on the ministry to clean up behind them by modifying muggle memories, he’s never had to worry about it too much. He goes to wizard school, why would he think about what would happen if muggles came to wizard school? Muggles aren’t even wizards!

And he isn’t going to find out about it by reading a book for the reasons we already discussed.

And he resents Hermione for knowing things about the wizarding world that he doesn’t know, even though he doesn’t want to know stuff because knowing stuff isn’t cool. And whether he believes it or not, part of his annoyance with her (and you can disagree with me here, that’s fine) is because she’s muggle born.

Ron Weasley is a poor kid who wants someone else to be beneath him. In his world, that’s muggles. Hermione comes from muggles, she was raised in the stupid and backwards muggle world. How dare she come here and try hard and do better than us wizards. I don’t think these are conscious thoughts for Ron, but I do think they motivate him as a character. He’s deeply jealous. He’s jealous of his brothers, he’s jealous of Harry, and he’s jealous of Hermione.

Hermione has even less status than Ron does, so she has to take him ridicule and mockery, the same way Ron has to take it from nearly everyone else.

The original text is on Ron’s side here, by the way. While relying on Hermione to get all of this information to the reader, it makes it pretty clear that she’s an annoying and insufferable know it all. Ron thinks she’s annoying just for knowing stuff he doesn’t know, but the narrative thinks she’s annoying for being pushy about sharing her knowledge. It really wants us to believe that Hermione is stuck up and snobby and rude and just won’t stop talking.

But that’s not true. Hermione Granger barely freaking talks. At least thus far, she spends most of her time silently waiting for the fellas to sort things out. Hermione Granger is not a bossy know it all who can’t shut up. Hermione Granger is an extremely intelligent young woman who is almost constantly holding her tongue. Hermione Granger has more self control than I ever imagined was possible for a human being.

Hermione Granger And The Goblet Of Sexism

Chapter Ten: The Scar And The Prophet / Mayhem At The Ministry

Hermione lay awake in the dark tent, listening to Ginny’s steady breathing, for a very long time. Finally, the quality of the darkness shifted ever so slightly, and she heard a bird singing somewhere in the forest nearby. Then she heard the zip of the tent flap, and Mr. Weasley carefully stepped inside, tip-toed to Ginny’s bed, and said in a whisper “Ginny dear, time to get up, we’ve got to get home.” His voice sounded worried and anxious, and only after he had roused Ginny did Hermione sit up.

It had been a very long night.

She dressed quickly, and then stepped outside to see the others, as the horizon began to grow faintly lighter. Nobody said much of anything. Mr. Weasley used magic to pack up the tents, apparently now speed was more important than anti-muggle security.

When they left the campsite, they passed the Roberts cottage once again. Mr. Roberts looked dazed, and he waved them off, muttering “Merry Christmas” in a far away voice.

Mr. Weasley must have seen her face, because he quickly whispered “He’ll be alright. Sometimes, when a person’s memory’s modified, it makes him a bit disorientated for awhile… and that was a big thing they had to make him forget.”

She didn’t ask about all of the previous charms. She just hoped he was right, willed herself to believe that he was right, as they marched off along the moor.

The area where the Portkeys lay was crowded and noisy, with a crowd of people clambering around Basil. She guessed after the events of the night before, everyone was in as much a hurry to get home as the Weasley family. Mr. Weasley pushed through the crowd, and had a hurried discussion with Basil. Then it was only a short wait in the queue before they were able to take an old rubber tire back to Stoatshead Hill. They walked back through Ottery St. Catchpole as the sun rose in earnest now, and then up the damp lane toward the Burrow. Nobody was chatting on this early morning walk, each person seemed lost entirely in his or her own thoughts.

As they rounded the corner, a familiar voice came echoing down the lane.

“Oh thank goodness, thank goodness!”

Mrs. Weasley came running toward them on slippered feet, her face pale and strained with worry, a rolled-up copy of the Daily Prophet clutched hard in her left hand.

“Arthur!” she cried, flinging herself into her husband’s arms, “I’ve been so worried, so worried!” and the paper she’d been gripping fell from her hand and to the ground. It no longer mattered. The headline read: SCENES OF TERROR AT THE QUIDDITCH WORLD CUP and included a twinkling black-and-white photograph of the Dark Mark itself.

The reunion scene was sweet, and Hermione thought instantly of her own parents again. For a moment, she wanted to ask at once to borrow an owl and write her own mother. But no, it was stupid, mother didn’t even know, she didn’t read the Daily Prophet. There was no rush, and really, why bother her at all?

“You’re alright,” Mrs. Weasley was muttering, now releasing her husband and staring around at her children, “you’re alive… Oh boys…” and then she seized Fred and George even more tightly than she had Mr. Weasley.

“Ouch! Mum — you’re strangling us —”

“I shouted at you before you left!” she said with a little sob. “It’s all I’ve been thinking about! What if You-Know-Who had got you, and the last thing I’d ever said to you was that you didn’t get enough O.W.L.s? Oh Fred… George…”

“Come on, now, Molly, we’re all perfectly okay,” said Mr. Weasley, pulling her away from the twins and leading her back towards the house. “Bill,” he added in an undertone, “pick up that paper, I want to see what it says…”

In the kitchen, Hermione went straight for the stovetop and put the kettle on. Mrs. Weasley would need a good cup of tea after her fright. Mr. Weasley rummaged in a back cupboard for a tiny bottle of something, which turned out to be Ogdens Old Firewhiskey.

“Really, Arthur!” Mrs. Weasley said when she saw him with the bottle.

“Come now Molly, it’s just a taste to calm your nerves…” said Mr. Weasley as he poured a shot into her teacup. Then Bill handed him the paper, and he sat down to scan the front page opposite his wife at the kitchen table, with Percy peering over his shoulder.

“I knew it,” said Mr. Weasley heavily. “Ministry blunders… culprits not apprehended… lax security… Dark wizards running unchecked… national disgrace… Who wrote this? Ah… of course…” there was an air of disdain in his voice now, “Rita Skeeter.”

Hermione was about to note that there was nothing factually incorrect with the write-up, but she thought better of it, and poured herself a cup of tea as well.

“That woman’s got it in for the Ministry of Magic!” Percy almost shouted, “Last week she was saying we’re wasting our time quibbling about cauldron thickness, when we should be stamping out vampires! As if it wasn’t specifically stated in paragraph twelve of the Guidelines for the Treatment of Non-Wizard Part-Humans—”

“Where?” spluttered Mrs. Weasley, choking on her tea and whiskey. “If I’d seen that, I’d have known you were alive!”

“Not by name,” Mr. Weasley screwed up his eyes. “Listen to this: ‘If the terrified wizards and witches who waited breathlessly for news at the edge of the wood expected reassurance from the Ministry of Magic, they were sadly disappointed. A Ministry official emerged some time after the appearance of the Dark Mark alleging that nobody had been hurt, but refusing to give any more information. Whether this statement will be enough to quash the rumors that several bodies were removed from the woods an hour later, remains to be seen.’ Oh really,” Mr. Weasley looked exasperated and handed the paper off to Percy. “Nobody was hurt. What was I supposed to say? Rumors that several bodies were removed from the woods… well, there certainly will be rumors now she’s printed that.”

He heaved a deep sigh. “Molly, I’m going to have to go into the office; this is going to take some smoothing over.”

Percy looked up from the paper and said “I’ll come with you, Father. Mr. Crouch will need all hands on deck. And I can give him my cauldron report in person.” and he headed out of the kitchen, perhaps to get properly dressed.

Mrs. Weasley took a sip from her tea “Arthur, you’re supposed to be on holiday! This hasn’t got anything to do with your office; surely they can handle this without you?” she said rather reasonably.

“I’ve got to go, Molly,” Mr. Weasley sighed again. “I’ve made things worse. I’ll just change into my robes and I’ll be off.” and he stood up from the little table.

“Mrs. Weasley,” said Harry, who’d been quiet since they arrived, “Hedwig hasn’t arrived with a letter for me, has she?”

She looked up at Harry while Mrs. Weasley said “Hedwig, dear? No… no there hasn’t been any post at all.” Who was Harry expecting mail from?

“All right if I go and dump my stuff in your room, Ron?” Harry said practically winking across the table at Hermione and Ron.

“Yeah… think I will too,” said Ron, just as obviously. “Hermione?”

“Yes,” she said quickly, but realized there was no way the others would realize anything was strange as they made their way up the stairs, they were all to engrossed in the paper being passed around the little kitchen.

“What’s up, Harry?” said Ron, as he closed the door to his attic bedroom.

He was talking, of course, about the magical scar on his forehead, leftover from the curse by Lord Voldemort. She gasped. Previously, his scar had only bothered him when Voldemort himself had been quite close to Harry. “Well, you should probably speak to Dumbledore when we get back to school, if you haven’t written him already, because I’m afraid he’s the only one who really knows much about it. In the meantime, there may be information in several books that would come in rather —”

“But —” Ron cut in without noticing, “he wasn’t there, was he? You-Know-Who? I mean — last time your scar kept hurting, he was at Hogwarts, wasn’t he?”

“I’m sure he wasn’t on Privet Drive,” Harry said, for all the world as though he hadn’t just dropped a bomb into the tiny bedroom. “But I was dreaming about him… him and Peter — you know, Wormtail. I can’t remember all of it now, but they were plotting to kill… someone.”

Hermione bit her lip hard, and nervously pushed the hair from her eyes.

“It was only a dream, Ron said. “Just a nightmare.”

“Yeah, but was it, though?” said Harry, and he looked away from his friends and out the window at the brightening morning sky. He was obviously worried, and Hermione could see why. After all, he’d dreamed about the dark wizard that everyone else called ‘You-Know-Who’ before, and that had never caused him physical pain in his scar. There was a tense moment of silence, and she glanced over at Ron. When Harry’s back was turned, Ron suddenly looked quite concerned as well.

“It’s weird, isn’t it?” Harry said, in a far away voice, “My scar hurts, and three days later the Death Eaters are on the march, and Voldemort’s sign’s up in the sky again.”

“Don’t — say — his — name!” Ron said breathlessly.

“And remember what Professor Trelawney said? At the end of last year?” Harry said.

Hermione scoffed. Professor Trelawney was the Divination teacher at Hogwarts, only she wasn’t very good at divination herself and was constantly making gloom and doom predictions about students… especially famous students like Harry Potter. “Oh Harry,” she said, “you aren’t going to pay any attention to anything that old fraud says?”

“You weren’t there,” Harry said, shooting her a look, “You didn’t hear her. This time was different. I told you, she went into a trance — a real one. And she said the Dark Lord would rise again… greater and more terrible than ever before… and he’d manage it because his servant was going to go back to him… and that night Wormtail escaped.”

She bit her lip again. She hated all this emphasis on fortune telling, it really was such a distraction. She’d thought Harry was a bit brighter than that… and yet, here they were.

“Why were you asking if Hedwig had come, Harry?” she asked, trying to change the subject, it was no use arguing. “Are you expecting a letter?”

She couldn’t think why Sirius Black, Harry’s godfather he’d only known a short few months, would be the best person to discuss the matter with. But Ron’s face lit up and he said “Good thinking! I bet Serius’ll know what to do!”

“But we don’t know where Sirius is,” she offered, “he could be in Africa or somewhere, couldn’t he? Hedwig’s not going to manage that journey in a few days.”

She wanted very badly to help her friend, to give him some comfort. If she’d learned anything about him in the time she’d known him, it was that she couldn’t push him to seek help if he didn’t want to. But he really did need to talk to someone about this, it could be important, and it was obviously troubling him. He just stared out the window, and she felt helpless.

“Yeah, I know.” was all he said.

“Come and have a game of Quidditch in the orchard, Harry,” Ron piped up. “Come on — three on three, Bill and Charlie and Fred and George will play… You can try out the Wronski Feint…”

“Ron,” she said, guessing Harry hadn’t slept much more than she had the night before, and looking at his pale form leaning on the window, “Harry doesn’t want to play Quidditch right now… He’s worried, and he’s tired…. We all need to go to bed….”

“Yeah, I want to play Quidditch,” Harry said rather suddenly, and stood up quite straight. “Hang on, I’ll get my firebolt.”

Hermione looked at both of her friends. As she hadn’t been invited to play Quidditch (not that she was particularly keen to) she thought she’d better head downstairs. And so she left Ron’s attic bedroom, softly muttering “boys…” under her breath. Sometimes she really didn’t know what to make of either of them.

***

The next day, Hermione did manage to borrow an owl and write her parents, but at the last moment she decided not to tell them about the trouble at the World Cup. There was no sense in worrying them, and it wasn’t as if they could do anything anyways. And besides, it occurred to her that if they were worried enough, they might decide that the wizarding world wasn’t safe, and ask her to come straight home. They weren’t normally the overprotective sort, but these were evil wizards they were talking about, and she couldn’t be too careful.

So she tied a letter to Hermes’ leg that focused on the good parts of the match and how much fun she was having at the burrow. Hermes was Percy’s owl, and he normally didn’t lend him out, but he was so busy at work at the ministry that he was hardly using him anyways.

“It’ll be good for him to have something to do, give his wings a stretch, poor fellow’s been bored, I expect.”

She got a letter back straight away, which was signed by both of her parents, but she suspected written by her mother.

Dear Hermione,

Your father and I are so pleased to hear you’ve been having a good time! That match does sound quite exciting, perhaps we can all get tickets to a Quidditch game next summer sometime (if that’s allowed)? Thank the Weasleys for letting you stay for us, won’t you dear? And have a wonderful start of term. Don’t forget to write.

P.S. The Christmas holidays can’t come soon enough!Love,Mum & Dad

She hadn’t exactly lied to her parents, she was having rather a good time at the burrow. Though, to her surprise, she was spending a lot more time with Ginny than she was with Harry or Ron.

Mrs. Weasley did all of their school shopping for them, and brought back all of their new books and the other supplies they would need for the following term. The night before start of term, Hermione found herself in the burrow’s sitting room, pouring over her copy of The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 4. Even though she would be taking the usual number of classes this term (instead of all the extras she’d attempted the previous school year) she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was going to be quite busy at Hogwarts, and it was always best to get ahead.

“It’s been an absolutely uproar. I’ve been putting out fires all week.” Percy said from the other end of the sofa, he’d recently returned from work at the Ministry. “People keep sending Howlers, and of course, if you don’t open a Howler straight away, it explodes. Scorch marks all over my desk and my best quill reduced to cinders.”

“Why are they all sending Howlers?” Ginny asked from her spot on the floor in front of the fire.

“Complaining about security at the World Cup,” said Percy. “They want compensation for their ruined property. Mundungus Fletcher’s put in a claim for a twelve-bedroomed tent with en-suite Jacuzzi, but I’ve got his number. I know for a fact he was sleeping under a cloak propped on sticks.”

Hermione raised her eyebrows slightly, and looked up over her book at the room at large. Harry was lovingly polishing his broomstick, Mrs. Weasley looked rather tense and worried (well, she had done a lot all week, truth be told) sitting in her favorite armchair, Ginny was mending a book with a roll of Spellotape, and Ron and Bill were playing a game of wizard’s chess at the far end of the room. Fred and George were sitting in a far corner apart from everyone else, quills out, talking in whispers, and Charlie was darning something next to her on the sofa. It was a crowded room, and only Mr. Weasley was absent, still at work.She buried her head in her book again, trying to focus, wondering if she might be better off stealing away into Ginny’s bedroom to finish her reading. Oh well, she was used to studying in a noisy common room, she could tune it out…

“Don’t you dare blame your father for what that wretched Skeeter woman wrote!” Mrs. Weasley almost shouted, pulling Hermione out of her book once again. She was talking to Percy.

Bill set down the chess piece he’d been contemplating and said “If dad hadn’t said anything, old Rita would just have said it was disgraceful that nobody from the Ministry had commented. Rita Skeeter never makes anyone look good. Remember, she interviewed all the Gringots’ Charm Breakers once, and called me ‘a long-haired pillock’?”

“Well, it is a bit long, dear…” Mrs. Weasley began, and Hermione returned to her book. She wanted to finish this section at least. The talk went on around her, but she allowed herself to become completely engrossed in the theory behind summoning spells. They seemed a very practical thing to learn about…

But, scarcely a moment later, the kitchen fireplace roared as Mr. Weasley returned home, and Mrs. Weasley jumped up with a cry of “Oh your father’s coming!” and bolted out of the room. Mr. Weasley always used the kitchen fire to get to and from the Ministry, and Hermione always wondered why he never used the one in the sitting room, but she felt too awkward to ask. She supposed it was probably obvious to those who’d grown up in the magical world.

Then Mr. Weasley was stepping into the room with his dinner on a tray, and Hermione gave up her reading for the evening. She closed the book, hoping she’d have a chance to read on the Hogwarts Express the next day, though she didn’t really expect to. She glanced out the window, it was raining.

“Well, the fat’s really in the fire now,” Mr. Weasley said, sounding exhausted, as he sat down in the armchair by the hearth. “Rita Skeeter’s been ferreting around all week, looking for more Ministry mess-ups to report. And now she’s found out about poor old Bertha going missing, so that’ll be the headline in the Prophet tomorrow. I told Bagman he should have sent someone to look for her ages ago.”

So, she thought, the government was trying to keep everything hushed up and away from the press, and then blaming one reporter that they weren’t getting the coverage that they wanted. From what Hermione had seen of how the Ministry ran things, this Rita Skeeter probably didn’t have to look far for more blunders…

“Mr. Crouch has been saying it for weeks and weeks,” Percy said.

“Crouch is very lucky Rita hasn’t found out about Winky,” said Mr. Weasley, sounding irritable. “There’d be a week’s worth of headlines in his house elf being caught holding the wand that conjured the Dark Mark.”

“I thought we were all agreed that that elf, while irresponsible, did not conjure the Mark?” Percy raised his voice just a little.

“If you ask me,” she said, trying her best to keep her voice level, “Mr. Crouch is very lucky no one at the Daily Prophet knows how mean he is to elves!”

Hermione couldn’t stand it. “His slave, you mean!” she shouted, well aware that the whole living room was now staring at her, “because he didn’t pay Winky, did he?”

“I think you’d all better go upstairs and check that you’ve packed properly!” Mrs. Weasley cut in, in a falsely cheery voice. Hermione was fuming, but she didn’t want to seem an ungrateful guest. She put her book under her arm, and marched into Ginny’s room without saying a word to anyone, to double check everything in her trunk. Maybe they would think she was just following instructions, and not storming off. Of course, everything was neat and tidy and ready to go, well she’d known that already.

She sighed heavily, and plopped down on the camp bed she’d called her own for the last week. She was angry at Percy, and at Ronald, and the whole lot of them for being so insensitive about Winky. She even felt angry with Mrs. Weasley, which she hated. And, though she didn’t want to admit it, she was feeling a bit mixed up. She was eager to get to Hogwarts, and yet she was already feeling homesick. Maybe she shouldn’t have come, maybe she should have spent the last week of the holidays with her own family… with her own mother. And though she wanted very much to help Harry get to the bottom of whatever was going on with his scar, she was also becoming aware that neither of her best friends had asked her much about what was going on with her. She was lonesome, and lonesome is a hard thing to be in a crowded house.

Ginny walked into the room quietly, and avoided Hermione’s eye. Hermione didn’t blame her. She pretended to refold some robes while Ginny walked up to her own trunk, groaned, and said “damn it all, this is going to take ages to pack properly!”

Well, Hermione thought, at the very least she could be some use with that, and she got up to help.

The rain continued.

***

Deconstruction / Notes On The Source Text

It is very lonely to be Hermione Granger. It is heartbreakingly lonely to be Hermione Granger. Even surrounded by people who supposedly care about her, Hermione is constantly isolated. And to some degree, this must be the case for most muggle-born witches and wizards, but Hermione is the one we get the closest to, the only one the reader has a chance to get close to at all. Like the worst of White American Liberalism, “tolerant” witches and wizards parade out their muggle-born friends as evidence of how accepting they are. “See?” they say, “It doesn’t make any difference to me! I even have muggle-born friends! I honestly can’t tell the difference between them and my pureblood friends.” They absolutely refuse to look at the fact that being muggle-born absolutely DOES make a difference. Muggle-born wizards face prejudice, some aggressive and ugly, some covert and less notable, and have to deal with that every single day of their lives. But they also have a very different cultural experience. By trying to view them as “exactly the same” wizards like the Weasleys fail to see them AT ALL.I’m a white woman, so it isn’t my place to use a race metaphor here. But I am also a queer woman, so I will use that instead. Allies who supposedly see my family (two moms, one kid, three cats) as “just like anybody else” and “no different than a straight couple” (things I have actually heard from people who love me, yup) are lazy and ineffective allies at best. I am very very different than a straight person, and my family life is very very different than that of a straight family. Are there common threads? Sure. But straight people don’t live with the knowledge that that one cousin didn’t come to your wedding because he’s an angry homophobe… and they don’t have to live with the knowledge that the rest of the family wants to pretend he’s still a good guy and you should be fine with seeing him at family gathers. Straight people do not have to come out, and know that they will face backlash and rejection from at least SOME PEOPLE when they do. Straight people very rarely are told that they are “tearing the family apart” because they kissed someone they have a crush on. Straight people are rarely told that they should be GRATEFUL that people are working SO HARD to be TOLERANT of them even though they won’t say the word “girlfriend” about their girlfriends. Even if I wanted to assimilate, and have a family that was just like a straight family except that one teeny tiny detail (and I don’t) I couldn’t because my personal history is full of this stuff, as is my present. To say that you see no difference between my family (in which we are currently struggling to get our kid adopted by my wife, and had to do a freaking fundraiser for that, in which both me and my wife could be fired at any time for being gay, in which our child has two moms and a fairy godmother (sperm donor), in which our child is probably going to get made fun of for not having a dad someday) and the family down the street with a mom and a dad where parentage is generally assumed and respected by society… is the peak of a certain kind of privilege. It’s total and complete unawareness masquerading as acceptance.

And so, the reunion scene with Mrs. Weasley. In the original text, Mrs. Weasley is played as overly emotional and unreasonable (ugh ugh ugh) for the crime of knowing that her entire family was around unspeakable violence and you know, worrying. The text tells us that she grabs her family too tightly, yells too loudly, she is oppressive with her love and concern. It’s a kind of bare misogyny and ugliness already. But when I looked at it from Hermione’s point of view, it was far sadder.

There are flaws to doing this re-write chapter by chapter, but this is what we’re doing. And if this is a story about Hermione Granger, we need to look back at HER story. And that means that this book starts with Hermione arguing with her mother. Hermione is a fourteen year old girl parsing out conflicts with her parents, dealing with her close and loving relationship with her mother changing. Some of that is normal teenager stuff, but some of it is different because she’s a witch. She’s not only slowly gaining more independence and seeing her parents as human and therefore flawed (and being shaken up by that) she’s also literally leaving their world.

Imagine how Hermione Granger feels to see Mrs. Weasley grab her sons with all of that inconvenient motherly love and worry. She left her own mother in the midst of an argument. And Hermione was quite possibly in greater danger than any of the Weasleys (if Draco Malfoy is saying that he views muggles and muggle-borns as the same, and worthy of the same disdain and abuse, and we *suspect* that Draco’s father was involved in the attack on muggles… it isn’t far fetched to assume that is an attitude held by the attackers… and in later books we will see that this is the case) but her mother has no idea. A lot of us started keeping things from our parents around the age of fourteen, and Hermione is no exception. But increasingly, what she is keeping secret from her parents isn’t romance or bad grades or experimenting with substances, it’s the violence of the wizarding world.

I think she starts doing this for two reasons: One is that she feels that as a witch, she has to protect her muggle parents, and the entire wizarding world seems to think that the only way to protect muggles is to keep them ignorant. We talked in the comments about why this is wrongheaded and ultimately helps the death-eaters, but it is the common belief. And Hermione is afraid to rock the boat too much so it makes sense that she wouldn’t challenge that overly much. The second reason is that if her parents know exactly how dangerous and violent the wizarding world is, they might pull her out of school. And if they pull her out of school, she doesn’t get to be a witch anymore.

Which, while we’re on the subject of that, let’s talk about expulsion from Hogwarts and what that means. In the first book, Hermione says “I’m going to bed, before either of you do something else to get us killed, or worse, expelled” to Ron and Harry. Ron says “she needs to sort out her priorities.” It’s supposed to be funny. The first time I read it, I thought it was funny. I think we’ve all known someone who was very type-A and academics focused, to the point where they seemed to view school as the be all end all of their existence. It’s funny because most of us can think of a time when we looked at someone and thought “they need to sort out their priorities!” in a similar way. But that sort of requires seeing being expelled from Hogwarts as the same as being expelled from anywhere else. It isn’t. And it’s even less so for muggle-born witches and wizards.

If I had gotten expelled from High School, my parents would have been furious. There would have been a lot of social shame attached to that. There would have been strict punishments. It could have seriously set me back in my adult life by “starting me out on the wrong foot.” BUT I would have had options. I could have gotten my GED. I could have gone to a different High School in the area. If Ron Weasley gets expelled from Hogwarts, his mother will being furious and probably cruel, we know that. It’s unclear whether or not he would be allowed to go to another European wizarding school, but if it’s an options, I’m sure his parents would pursue it. Worst case scenario for Ron though, in the event of expulsion, would be life like Hagrid’s. It’s not what he wants, and it’s still MUCH MUCH WORSE than my predicted expulsion outcome, but he would still get to live in the wizarding world.

But if Hermione gets expelled… she has to go back to being a muggle. Only, of course, she won’t be able to. She isn’t a muggle, and she never really was. We know that magic slips out of witches and wizards when they are frustrated. So she would return to the muggle world, officially unallowed to use the powers she’s worked so hard to understand and hone, living in constant fear of being arrested by the wizarding world for letting something slip. It would be a nightmare. All of this means that OF COURSE Hermione is going to be uptight about the rules (but it’s also how she’s wired, I get it, I have similar wiring) and also she sure isn’t about to give her parents any reason to pull her out of school.

Ok, now let’s talk about The Media!Reading this chapter NOW feels very… different… than it did a few years ago. I don’t want to make this deconstruction about American Politics, but I certainly can’t help but view things through the lens of the world I’m currently experiencing at least a little. So here we have a situation where the government handled a situation terribly, and I do mean TERRIBLY, and now they are blaming The Media for reporting on it.The wizarding world is incredibly, impressively, corrupt. For some reason, the secret magical shadow government doesn’t exactly lend itself to transparency! We have no reason to believe that any of these powerful officials have been elected democratically (including Fudge). We know that the government is not above leaning on the Daily Prophet to suppress information (and we know that, at least some of the time, that works). We know that Lucius Malfoy is able to influence the government and the education system with money, and that sometimes works. Wizarding Britain has one government, one school, and one newspaper, and they’re all locked in a mutually abusive manipulative codependent relationship with each other.Does Rita Skeeter engage in bad journalism and downright lies? Yup, she sure does. Does she mix that with actual reporting in a way that is really dangerous? Uh-huh. Does the prophet hold an unnerving amount of sway over most witches and wizards opinions? Oh yeah. I’m not here to paint Rita Skeeter as Secretly Good… because I know what’s going to happen later in this book. But in this section? I cannot find an untruth in the segment we’re read. I mean, it’s possible that (as Arthur Weasley assumes) she fabricated the rumors about bodies. But it’s just as possible that she interviewed people on the ground.

What happened at the World Cup WAS a Ministry Blunder, and culprits WERE NOT apprehended. That’s not sensationalism… that is just what happened. As far as I can tell from the text, there were no aurors or magical law enforcement of any kind on duty at the world cup. But there were a lot of ministry employees with zero experience dealing with dark wizards, muggles, crowd control, or anything. When dark wizards attacked muggles, they panicked, and did not know how to handle the situation. Fortunately, they were able to save the muggle family, but they didn’t apprehend anyone because THEY DO NOT KNOW HOW.

Then, the Dark Mark happened, and we have more panic, more lack-of-due-process, more nonsense. Arthur Weasley is a ministry official. He emerged from the wood tired and wanting to keep his own family safe, and he was not on duty. But he was also the first ministry official to greet the public after the Dark Mark was put into the sky. He knows how serious this is. He knows how frightened people are. He knows (presumably) what his position is. He should have known how to say something boilerplate and vague until an official statement could be made.He should have been able to say “There are no known injuries, and I can assure you that the ministry is doing everything in our power to get to the bottom of the situation. We have every reason to believe that the danger has passed, please everyone stay calm.” or something way better than that because I have not been trained in how to deal with these situations but Arthur Weasley damn well should have been.So what did Arthur Weasley say?

“Of course it’s not Him,” said Mr. Weasley impatiently. “We don’t know who it was; it looks like they Disapparated. Now excuse me, please, I want to get to bed.”

Oh.

The expectation that the paper should report on the incident casting the ministry in a more favorable light… and that anyone who doesn’t has “got it in for the ministry” is really really troubling. That’s not how journalism works. Or at least, it’s not supposed to be.

And then we have this bit:“Well, the fat’s really in the fire now,” Mr. Weasley said, sounding exhausted, as he sat down in the armchair by the hearth. “Rita Skeeter’s been ferreting around all week, looking for more Ministry mess-ups to report. And now she’s found out about poor old Bertha going missing, so that’ll be the headline in the Prophet tomorrow. I told Bagman he should have sent someone to look for her ages ago.”

I ACTUALLY WANT TO SCREAM.

Imagine, a REPORTER came across a government handling some things very poorly, and now she’s looking at that government’s operations more closely! The nerve of some people, amirite? Also, yes, a government employee went missing some time ago, and no, no one has looked for her at all. Apparently, we do not have a branch of our shadow government to deal with such things, it was solely her boss’s responsibility to SEND SOMEONE (who? WHO?) to go and look for her. There is no formal investigation, and there is no standard of practice for dealing with such things. It’s just one guy’s fault and no one else has any culpability at all, and even he isn’t too much to blame because he used to play sports.

I do not consider myself a journalist. I’m a writer, and I’ve picked up some reporting skills, but I don’t do straight journalism in part because I don’t have the training to do it the way I believe it should be done. But if I was, this is absolutely the kind of thing that I would need to report on. As it stands, if I found out something like this about my own government, I would pass the tip on so that a skilled journalist COULD cover it.

Sometimes missing people are fine. Other times missing people are DEAD. Other times they are alive, but very much NOT FINE. And I hope we can all agree that if we are ever a missing person, there should be some kind of investigation, and it should not be (shudder) up to our BOSSES to decide when and how that happens. If Rita Skeeter has discovered that when governmental employees go missing, whether or not to search for them is left up to their bosses, and in this case the boss chose to do nothing… she has an ethical duty to report on that. The fact that Mr. Weasley knows Bertha has been missing, believes it could be serious and thinks Bagman should have handled it better, but has done nothing more about that fact than make a mild suggestion AND ALSO believes that Rita Skeeter should bury the story, speaks volumes about him. Press about Bertha Jorkins could FINALLY put the pressure on to launch a search and an investigation.

He is literally putting the ministry’s reputation above the safety of an innocent person.

Later on, in the fifth book, it will be implied that Arthur Weasley has some greater guiding morality than allegiance to the government (unlike some people we could name). But I see no real evidence of that. Arthur Weasley, like the majority of adult wizards, aligns himself with power and institutions, and believes in those institutions and their ability to tell the difference between right and wrong. When he’s willing to go against the ministry, it’s only because he’s allegiance is called elsewhere. He loves the ministry, but he trusts Dumbledore more. Much like Lucius Malfoy, who loves the ministry, but trusts Voldemort more.

Also we have a nice little dig at poor people with the Mundungus Fletcher bit. We’ll find out later that Mundungus is a crook (in book five, apparently “I steal” is his only real character trait) but at this point we know nothing about the man. Except that he is so poor that he had to sleep under a cloak propped up on sticks. And he’s trying to screw the government out of money. Given that poor people are constantly accused of not needing the government assistance they use, this feels really gross to me. It’s also really frustrating to see the Weasley family, who are also struggling financially, engage in this sort of classism within the wizarding world.

And, is it my imagination, or is Percy Weasley — a poor boy from a poor family that had to borrow tents to attend the World Cup with tickets that they got for free — frustrated on behalf on the Ministry that other people, who’s possessions were destroyed YES IN PART BECAUSE OF POOR PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT ON BEHALF OF THE MINISTRY, aren’t happy to take the loss? I like Percy (sometimes) a great deal more than I’m supposed to, but come on. Percy, and most of the other Weasley children really, do not want an improved system that will be more fair for poor families like their own. Instead, they want to rise within the ranks of a deeply stratified social order, so that they can attain slightly more privilege and comfort than their parents.

Hermione Granger and The Goblet of Sexism

Chapter Nine: The Wayward Wand / The Dark Mark

They all made their way down the endless purple stairs together. Ron and Harry were still clutching their omnioculars grinning like idiots, and Mr. Weasley turned behind himself to look into the twins’ happy faces.

“Don’t tell your mother you’ve been gambling.” he said seriously.

“Don’t worry, Dad,” said Fred, “we’ve got big plans for this money. We don’t want it confiscated.” Hermione wanted to say something, but she didn’t, she just couldn’t even begin to understand how the Weasley family worked.

Mr. Weasley gave both twins a long look, but then said nothing as well.

The crowd on the way back to the campsites was entirely different than it had been on the way to the stadium. It was the same group of people, all witches and wizards, but whereas it had been filled with anticipation before the match, now it was filled only with jubilance and celebration. Or at least, so it seemed near them, she reminded herself that the Bulgarian supporters might be a whole lot less merry. Once they reached the tents (and it felt like ages) everyone agreed it was much too early to turn in. They all headed into the boys’ tent, and sat around the table in the little kitchen. Mr. Weasley put the kettle on for cocoa, and Hermione sat next to Ginny and listed to her argue spiritedly with her brothers about the match. Soon enough Harry was talking over everyone else about how he’d seen Krum hit and “why didn’t the referee?” and next thing she knew Ginny was dozing off right next to her. When her cocoa started to spill Mr. Weasley said “ah, I do believe it’s time for bed.”

So she helped Ginny up, and together they made their way to their own tent. They could still hear the noise of others celebrating, but somehow inside the tent it was rather cozy, almost homey. Ginny was asleep almost instantly, but as tired as Hermione was, she was awake for a very long time. The match was a lot to digest, and it was more than just the match, it was the entire day. She had lived over half her life in the wizarding world for three full years now, and yet she still felt she didn’t understand it at all.

She wondered, fleetingly, if that dark-haired Bulgarian seeker, Krum, had ever gotten proper care. She hoped that he had. Quidditch really could be quite dangerous, but for those who lived in the wizarding world their whole lives, the danger never seemed too serious. She supposed it would feel rather differently, if you never had to wait very long for anything to heal.

Somehow, she dozed off at last. She never knew whether or not she dreamed.

Then suddenly, she was wide awake, and she could hear shouting all around her. The tent, which had felt so much like a cozy flat, was obviously just a fancy tent in the woods again. The canvas walls moved with the breeze. Ginny was already sitting up in her bed, and she looked petrified. Something was terribly, horribly, wrong.Suddenly the tent flap was being unzipped. Ginny let out a screech of alarm, but the head that poked into the opening turned out to be her father’s. Arthur Weasley looked as scared as Ginny had, and he barked “girls! Coats on, and get outside, now!” with no explanation.

She tried hard not to imagine what might be going on out there, or why it was so urgent to move quickly. Guessing wouldn’t help her, she would know soon enough.

Hermione sprang out of bed, gave Ginny’s shaking hand a quick squeeze, and found their coats. Both girls slipped on their shoes as quickly as they could, and they were still pulling their coats on as they dashed out of the tent, to meet the gaggle of other Weasleys standing by the boys’ tent.

The sight that greeted them was not one Hermione would have believed.

Several tents were on fire, and more were destroyed on the ground, and a group of wizards in dark, hooded, robes was marching slowly across the field. She knew who they were, or at least who they wanted to be that evening, from her studies. They were dressed, with hoods and masks, every bit the part of dark wizards — the wizards who called themselves “Death Eaters” and supported the wizard so evil other wizards feared to speak his name — and they were all pointing their wants upward, into the night sky. Though, that wasn’t quite right, because they’d also been met by other people, other wizards and witches, in more typical wizarding dress. Some of them had joined ranks… and she felt herself involuntarily shudder at that the thought the ordinary witches and wizards might so easily join up with pure evil. Then she followed the pointed wands upward.

There, in the sky, were four people. Two of them were mere children, one was a woman, and the other was unmistakably Mr. Roberts, the campsite manager from the day before. They were all floating in the air, twisting and turning, obviously struggling against the magic that held them. The crowd of hooded figures was laughing and cheering. The woman was upside down, and she was struggling to push her nightdress upwards to cover her drawers… rather unsuccessfully. It was hard to tell at the distance, but she thought that the woman and one of the children at least, were sobbing.

They were torturing them. They were torturing a muggle family for sport. It could have been her own family. It could have been anyone. She fought down the urge to vomit.

“We’re going to help the Ministry!” Mr. Weasley shouted, and she turned, grateful to have a reason to look away from the horrific spectacle. She realized he was gesturing to his eldest sons, Bill, Charlie, and Percy, who all had their wands out and appeared ready to go. Hermione wanted to help as well, how could she stand by, there were kids up there!

“You lot!” Mr. Weasley continued, “get into the woods, and stick together. I’ll come and fetch you when we’ve sorted this out.”

She glanced towards the woods, and noticed that there were others headed that way, retreating from the light and the noise, looking for cover. She didn’t want to run away, she was a Gryffindor and a muggle born witch! But there was no time to argue, Bill, Charlie, and Percy had already sprinted off towards the chaos, and soon Mr. Weasley hurried after. The crowd was coming closer, and she could see the muggle family more and more clearly.

Then a voice said “c’mon” and Fred grabbed Ginny’s hand, and then they were all following after him toward the wood. They didn’t meet any trouble on their way. When the reached the tree line, without meaning to, she reflexively looked back, and then she noticed that the others had done the same. The crowd had grown even larger, and more of them were hooded than before, or perhaps some had simply pulled up their hoods to avoid being seen by the ministry, who were trying fruitlessly to get to the center of the group. She wondered if they had a plan to get the Roberts family down safely. She pulled her eyes away.

In the woods, the colored lanterns that had lit the path earlier had all been extinguished. With so many people trying to take cover in the darkness of the trees, it was pandemonium. Children were crying, people were shouting, and everyone looked like nothing more than a dark shadowy figure tripping over tree roots. Hermione ran into Ron, then George, and then Ron a second time. He must have hurried ahead, and then she heard him yell out in pain.

“What happened?” she said, and then Harry walked straight into her. “Ron where are you? Oh this is stupid — lumos!”

Reasonable restriction of underage wizardry be damned, she wasn’t going to get herself injured in the woods for no reason when her wand made a perfectly suitable torch. It instantly illuminated, and she pointed the narrow beam of line across the path… and there was Ron, and he was sprawled out on the ground.

“Tripped over a tree root,” he said angrily.

“Well, with feet that size, hard not to,” said a drawing voice behind them. She knew that voice.

She turned, and so did Harry and Ron, and there was none other than Draco Malfoy. He was standing alone, looking completely relaxed in the sea of panic and fear.

Ron shouted something vulgar in Malfoy’s direction.

“Language, Weasley,” said Malfoy, his eyes glittering and his voice dripping with condescension, “Hadn’t you better be hurrying along, now? You wouldn’t like her spotted, would you?” he was looking straight into her face, and he nodded once.

At that moment there was a sound that was almost like a bomb from the campsite, and a flash of green light.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she retorted, her skin crawling.

“Granger, they’re after Muggles,” he said gleefully, “D’you want to be showing off your knickers in midair? Because if you do, hang around… they’re moving this way, and it would give us all a laugh.”

Harry snarled “Hermione’s a witch!”

“Have it your own way, Potter,” said Malfoy, still smiling, “If you think they an’t spot a Mudblood, stay where you are.”

“You watch your mouth!” shouted Ron. He was objecting to the term, “Mudblood,” which meant a witch or wizard of Muggle parentage, but really what Malfoy was saying was much worse than the slur.

“Never mind, Ron,” Hermione said to shush him, and she seized his arm just before Ron moved toward Malfoy. Things were getting out of hand.

There was a loud bang, even worse than the last one, followed by screams of fear and confusion.

Malfoy chuckled to himself, “Scare easily, don’t they? I suppose your daddy told you all to hide? What’s he up to — trying to rescue the Muggles?” and the way he said the word “muggles” made it sound, if possible, like a nastier insult than “mudblood.”

“Well… if they were, I wouldn’t be likely to tell you, would I, Potter?”

“Oh come on,” Hermione said, “let’s go and find the others.” There was no point to arguing with a bully in the woods, and anyway, she didn’t want to admit it, but she was beginning to feel a bit frightened.

“Keep that big bushy head down, Granger.” sneered Malfoy.

Hermione only said “come on!” and then to her great annoyance she had to pull both Ron and Harry up the path to catch up with the other Weasleys.

“I’ll bet you anything his dad is one of that masked lot!” said Ron, rather hotly.

“Well, with any luck, the Ministry will catch him!” Hermione replied, trying to be sensible. And then she looked around, and said “Oh I can’t believe this. Where have the others got to?” for they were nowhere to be seen in the crowd of people all along the path.

A huddle of other teenagers, also in pajamas, seemed to notice their little group, and a girl with thick curly hair came toward them at once saying “Ou est Madame Maxime? Nous l’avons perdue —”

“Er — what?” said Ron, as though he’d never heard anyone speak French before, which maybe he hadn’t.

“Oh…” The girl turned back to her friends, saying “‘Ogwarts.”

Hermione nodded and said “Beauxbatons,” which was the name of the French wizarding school she supposed they must belong to.

“Sorry?” Harry said.

She blinked at him, trying to be patient. “They must go to Beauxbatons, you know…” he was still staring at her blankly, “Beauxbatons Academy of Magic… I read about it in An Appraisal of Magical Education in Europe.”

“Oh… yeah… right.”

“Fred and George can’t have gone that far,” said Ron, and he pulled out his wand, apparently also deciding this was no time for silly laws, and lit it as well. She was grateful that now there were two of them searching, maybe they’d find Ginny and the others and…

“You’re kidding!” she said, and she and Ron raised their wands to spread out their beams of light in a way more suitable for wand-searching. She wanted very badly to get on and find the others, but they couldn’t exactly leave Harry’s wand in the woods, either.

“Maybe it’s back at the tent,” Ron said hopefully after about a minute.

“Maybe it fell out of your pocket when we were running?” Hermione said, suddenly picturing it lost in the crowded field.

“Yeah, maybe.” Harry said.

And then a rustling noise in the undergrowth nearby made all three of them jump. It wasn’t a wizard, it was the house elf they’d seen up in the Top Box, Winky. She appeared to be having some difficulty extracting herself from a clump of bushes, and then Hermione noticed that everything about her movements seemed a little off. Was she injured? She was moving laboriously, almost as though she were fighting with something — or someone — that was invisible.

“There is bad wizards about!” she said in her squeaky voice, panting as she leaned forward to keep running. “People high — high in the air! Winky is getting out of the way!” Hermione instantly remembered overhearing her mention her fear of heights, and felt terribly sorry for the little elf.

“What’s up with her?” said Ron with some curiosity, “Why can’t she run properly?”

Harry squinted at the little, struggling, elf and said “Bet she didn’t ask permission to hide.”

Suddenly, Hermione couldn’t take it anymore. Harry was probably right, it was hard enough for everyone else to look for safety, but Winky had to contend with magical forces impeding her very movement. “You know, house elves get a very raw deal!” She said, watching Winky with sadness. “It’s slavery, that’s what it is. That Mr. Crouch made her go up to the top of the stadium, and she was terrified, and he’s got her bewitched so she can’t even run when they start trampling tents! Why doesn’t anyone do something about it?”

Ron turned and looked at her blankly, “Well, the elves are happy, aren’t they? You heard old Winky back at the match… ‘House elves is not supposed to have fun’… that’s what she likes, being bossed around…”

She wanted to punch him. Instead she said “It’s people like you, Ron, who prop up rotten and unjust systems, just because they’re too lazy to —”

At that moment, there was another loud bang from the edge of the wood.

“Let’s just keep moving, shall we?” said Ron. She knew very well that he wanted to change the subject, but she also knew that for once in his life, Ronald Weasley was right. They did need to keep moving. They could talk about house elves another time, and they jolly well would.

Through the wood they followed the winding path, deeper into the gloom. There was still no sign of Ginny, Fred, or George, which made her increasingly anxious. They never should have let themselves get separated. They passed a group of goblins counting gold, and they seemed quite calm as they clinked the great big coins together into stacks. They didn’t see many people for a bit, until they walked into a patch of silver light. There they saw a gaggle of young men, talking quite loudly, surrounding three veela. The veela seemed quite disinterested in what the young men were saying.

“I pull down about a hundred sacks of Galleons a year!” said one of them, so loud it was almost a shout, “I’m a dragon killer for the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures.”

“No you’re not!” yelled one of his companions. “You’re a dishwasher at the Leaky Cauldron… but I’m a vampire hunter, I’ve killed about ninety so far—”

A third young man, who was thin and tall and had pretty bad acne, shouted out “I’m about to become the youngest ever Minister of Magic, I am!”

“Did I tell you,” said a voice that, to her surprise, turned out to be Ron’s, “I’ve invented a broomstick that’ll reach Jupiter?!”

“Honestly!” Hermione muttered, almost to herself. It was just like during the match, they were useless around the silvery veela. There was nothing for it, she nodded at Harry, who seemed to have slightly more of his wits about him, and the two of they grabbed Ron by his arms and marched him off into the wood. They didn’t let go until they were away from that silvery light, at which point they appeared to be in the heart of the woods, and quite alone.

Hermione was about to say that they hadn’t only been looking for cover, they also needed to find Ginny and the twins, but she didn’t get a chance. Because at that moment, none other than Ludo Bagman emerged from behind a tree.

He looked strained and… just odd. He had none of his usual boyishness. He was blinking at them, trying to make out their faces, and he said “Who’s that? What are you doing here, all alone?” sounding as suspicious as Hermione felt.

She exchanged glances with Harry and Ron.

“Well — there’s a sort of riot going on,” Ron said feebly.

“What?” said Bagman, staring.

“At the campsite… some people have got hold of a family of Muggles…”

Bagman swore, and then looked around in frustration. “Damn them!” he muttered, and then without another word, he disapparated with a small pop!”

She peered at the place he had been standing, and said “Not exactly on top of things, Mr. Bagman, is he?”

“He was a great Beater, though,” said Ron, apparently unaware that Bagman’s accomplishments as a Quidditch player weren’t exactly relevant, and he led the way to a small clearing, and sat down on a patch of dry grass next to a tree, saying, “The Wimbourne Wasps won the league three times in a row while he was with them.”

Then Ron took out his small figure of Viktor Krum, and watched it walk around. It seemed for all the world as if all the urgency of the situation had ended, by the way he acted. She glanced at Harry, but he seemed to be relaxing now too.

“I hope the others are okay,” she said slowly.

“They’ll be fine,” Ron said, in a casual tone.

Hermione put her hands in the pocket of her coat. Now that there was nothing else to focus on, she kept remembering the look on the Muggle woman’s face. She couldn’t stand it.

“Imagine if your dad catches Lucius Malfoy,” said Harry, as he lowered himself to the ground beside Ron, “He’s always said he’d like to get something on him.”

“That’d wipe the smirk off old Draco’s face, all right.” Ron said, still watching the tiny Krum walk back and forth.

She took a very deep breath, “Those poor Muggles, though! What if they can’t get them down?”

“They will, they’ll find a way.” Ron’s words did not reassure her.

“Mad, though…” she said, thinking back to the scene at the campsite, “to do something like that when the whole Ministry of Magic’s out here tonight! I mean, how do they expect to get away with it? Do you think they’ve been drinking, or are they just—”

She heard something. Someone was coming near the clearing, and instinctively she looked over her shoulder to follow the noise. It sounded as though whoever it was was sort of… staggering… and then the sound stopped as abruptly as it had started.

“Hello?” Harry called out.

There was only silence in response. Hermione held her breath. Anything could happen. I the death-eaters thought anything like Draco Malfoy (and probably they did) maybe she wasn’t safe after all. To these people, having Muggle parents was the same as being a Muggle yourself. She shivered in the coolness. Harry Potter was up on his feet, peering around the tree. She wanted to tell him to be careful, but suddenly her throat was too dry to speak.

“Who’s there?” echoed out Harry’s loud voice again.

And then there was a cry, it wasn’t a cry, it was a spell. Someone, a voice unlike any other they had heard that evening, was triumphantly crying out a spell she had never heard before.

“MORSMORDRE!”

And then something vast, and green, and glittering shot out of the place where the voice had come from, and flew up over the treetops and into the dark night sky.

The glittering green light was forming itself into a shape, and it was a horrible shape. A skull, comprise of emerald green stars, with a serpent protruding from its mouth, for all the world like it was a long tongue. It was higher and higher, blazing in a haze of smoke. She knew that sign, she didn’t want to know what it was, but she did. She felt she was going to be sick.

And then came the screams. It was as if a horror she had only read about, some fairy tale villain, had come to life. All around them in the wood, people were screaming in panic and fear, calling out for their loved ones, if possible more fearful than they had been running away from the campsite. Harry was looking around in confusion, and then to her horror he called out “Who’s there?” again in his foolish, booming, voice.

She reached for him, and got a fistful of his jacket collar. “Harry, come on, move!” she said as she tugged him backwards, trying to pull him away from the clearing.

“What’s the matter?” he said, resisting.

“It’s the Dark Mark, Harry!” she said, trying to make the boy move, but he wouldn’t budge. She added “You-Know-Who’s sign!” hoping he would get the idea.

“Voldemort’s—?” he said, his green eyes lighting up with recognition.

“Harry, come on!”

Ron, luckily, was already in motion. But Harry was impossible. He was bigger than her, to strong for her to move on his own, and she sighed with relief when he finally seemed to notice now might not be the best time to discuss his lack of knowledge about the dark wizard who had nearly killed him. They took a few hurried steps, and then there was a series of popping noises all around them. At once, about twenty wizards apparated into the clearing, and they all had their wands out, pointing at herself and her friends.

Somehow she had stopped trembling, she felt oddly calm in the panic, as though some other part of her brain had taken over as the situation became more dire. Harry Potter yelled “DUCK!” and pulled herself and Ron to the ground, and just in time, too.

“STUPEFY!” came the voice of the twenty wizards, and there were jets of bright light, blinding in the darkness, from each and every wand. She felt the rush of it push her hair this way and that, and she pulled herself down closer to the ground for protection. In a moment, they’d take a fresh aim, and it wouldn’t matter anyhow, they’d all be stunned.

“Stop!” yelled a familiar voice, “STOP! That’s my son!” It was Mr. Weasley. It was Mr. Weasley and he was running toward them, looking as though his very heart had left his body, and miraculously at least one of the other wizards lowered a wand, and the bright lights stopped.

“Out of the way, Arthur,” said yet another familiar voice. Hermione pulled her head up a little farther. It was Mr. Crouch. They had been attacked by Mr. Crouch, and he looked consumed with rage. She never would have guessed he could look so scary.

“Which of you did it?” he snapped, his eyes darting from Harry, to Ron, to Hermione, “Which of you conjured the Dark Mark?”

Harry, who must have stood up while she was still facing downwards, said “We didn’t do that!” pointing up into the sky at the green green skull.

“We didn’t do anything! What did you want to attack us for?” Ron shouted, and then he turned to his father.

“Do not lie, sir!” shouted Mr. Crouch. His wand was pointed directly at Ron, his eyes were huge with rage, and he said, “You have been discovered at the scene of the crime!”

“Barty,” whispered a new voice. Hermione turned, and saw a woman in a long woolen dressing gown, “they’re kids, Barty, they’d never have been able to—”

“Where did the Mark come from, you three?” said Mr. Weasley, cutting the witch off in mid-sentence.”

Hermione gulped, and replied “Over there,” and still in an awkward crouching position, she pointed at exactly where they had first heard that voice. “There was someone behind the trees… they shouted words — an incantation —”

“Oh they stood over there, did they?” said Mr. Crouch, his rage filled voice full of mockery, “Said an incantation, did they? You seem very well informed about how that Mark is summoned, missy—”

Hermione’s mouth fell open. She was being yelled at, and called missy, by a government official, simply because she knew what they all knew: that someone had cast a spell. She looked around, and saw that thankfully, all the other Ministry wizards had turned their attention (and their wands) on the place where she had pointed.

“We’re too late,” said the witch Mr. Weasley had interrupted, “They’ll have Disapparated.” She shook her head in disappointment.

“I don’t think so,” said another voice, this one male and slightly familiar. She looked up, and it turned out to be Amos Diggory, Cedric’s father. “Our Stunners went right through those trees… There’s a good chance we got them…” he marched across the clearing, squaring his shoulders and pointing his wand out before himself.

Someone shouted “Amos, be careful!” but Hermione never knew who it was. Hermione could hear her own heart beating.

“You’ve got someone?” Mr. Crouch shouted after him, “who, who is it?” and Hermione realized, to her surprise, that he sounded as though he didn’t believe Mr. Diggory at all.

Mr. Diggory made quite a lot of noise as he reemerged from the trees, and they all waited with baited breath. When he came into view, he did have someone, in fact he was carrying the someone, but they were very small. Surely it couldn’t have been a kid, someone too young even to go to Hogwarts? No, as he came into view Hermione saw more clearly… the figure in Mr. Diggory’s arms, almost cradled like a baby, was a house elf. It was Winky.

Mr. Crouch was still and silent, it was as though a sudden change had come over him at the sight of the elf. Amos Diggory laid Winky at Mr. Crouch’s feet, and Hermione wasn’t sure if he had done that because Mr. Crouch was leading the investigation, or because Winky was his elf. For a long moment, Mr. Crouch did not react, simply stared straight ahead, but then he finally looked down at the poor helpless creature at his feet.

“This — cannot —be,” he said in a very different voice than his previous shouting, each word halting and troubled. “No—”

Instantly he moved around Mr. Diggory, and made for the place in the trees where Winky had been found. He was searching the ground in a panic.

Everyone else stood in silence and Mr. Crouch continued to search the trees. The silenced stretched out, and with the worst of the panic over, Hermione finally realized that she was still cold. The night breeze was tickling her bare ankles. She hugged her coat around herself.

“Bit embarrassing,” said Mr. Diggory, finally breaking the silence, “Barty Crouch’s house elf… I mean to say…” he looked down at the unconscious form of Winky, and he did look as though he found the whole thing embarrassing.

“Here, look.” Mr. Diggory help up a wand for Mr. Weasley to see. “Had it in her hand. So there’s clause three of the Code of Wand Use broken, for a start. No non-human creature is permitted to carry or use a wand.”

Hermione was still shivering and looking down at the poor elf on the bare ground, but she heard Mr. Diggory recite the law, and a question formed in her sharp mind almost instantly. And that question was why. She shook her head, she would have to think about it later, they might still be in danger now, and she couldn’t miss anything. Anyway, these wizards couldn’t seriously think Winky had conjured the Dark Mark, could they? For one thing, the voice Hermione had heard sounded very much like a man’s, and for another Winky was far too timid, even if she did know how, which seemed unlikely.

Then there was another little pop, and another person apparated into the clearing. It was Ludo Bagman, and he stood next to Mr. Weasley looking disoriented and confused. Then he looked up into the sky, and it was as though he was noticing the emerald green skull for the very first time. “The Dark Mark!” he said rather stupidly, “Who did it? Did you get them? Barty! What’s goin on?”

Just then, Mr. Crouch returned to the clearing, empty-handed. His face was still white as a sheet, and his hands and his mustache were both twitching slightly. He didn’t say anything.

“Where have you been, Barty?” said Bagman in his boyish voice. “Why weren’t you at the match? Your elf was saving you a seat too — gulping gargoyles!” Bagman had just noticed Winky’s limp form at his feet. “What happened to her?”

“I have been busy, Ludo.” said Mr. Crouch, and his voice had not recovered and was still halting and jerky, “And my elf has been stunned.”

“Stunned?” said Bagman, “by you lot, you mean? But why?”

No one answered him. Mr. Crouch didn’t, and no one else dared to try. Then it was as though Bagman finally caught up, a looking of comprehension coming over his boyish face quite suddenly as he looked back and forth between Mr. Crouch and Winky.

“And she had one,” said Mr. Diggory. “I found her holding one, Ludo. If it’s alright with you, Mr. Crouch, I think we should hear what she’s got to say for herself.”

There was no response, but Mr. Diggory pointed his wand at the stunned elf anyway, and said “Ennervate!”

Poor Winky moved only a little, as though she were waking up confused, out of some kind of dream. She blinked her big brown eyes, and it made her look more human, despite her size and other characteristics. Surrounded by tall wizards, she rather shakily pulled herself upward, into a sitting position. She looked up into Mr. Diggory’s face, and there was no mistaking it, she was consumed by fear, maybe even more so than she had been in the Top Box. Then very very slowly, she turned her gaze to the sky, and the great green skull reflected in her large eyes. She gasped in terror, looked wildly around the crowded clearing, and then she began to cry.

“Elf!” said Mr. Diggory, though Hermione was quite sure he knew her name. “Do you know who I am? I’m a member of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures!”

Winky was rocking backward and forward on the ground, her breath coming in sharp bursts. She was going into some kind of panic, and she needed help.

“As you see, elf, the Dark Mark was conjured here a short while ago,” said Mr. Diggory in a stern and businesslike manner. “And you were discovered moments later, right beneath it! An explanation, if you please!”

“I — I — I is not doing it, sir!” Winky gasped breathlessly. “I is not knowing how, sir!”

“You were found with a wand in your hand!” Mr. Diggory nearly shouted, holding the wand up almost triumphantly.“Hey!” said Harry’s voice next to Hermione, “that’s mine!”

Hermione turned to look at Harry, and then to peer in the darkness at the wand and see if she could recognize it.

Mr. Diggory said, “Excuse me?”

“That’s my wand!” Harry said. “I dropped it!”

“You dropped it? Is this a confession? You threw it aside after you conjured the Mark?”

Hermione blinked. It wasn’t that she wanted her best friend to be accused and questioned. But if the likelihood of the thing didn’t matter for Winky, why on earth did it suddenly matter when it came to Harry Potter? How could magical law enforcement even function?

“I didn’t drop it there, anyway,” said Harry, innocently unaware of the injustice. “I missed it right after we got into the wood.”

“So,” said Mr. Diggory, his voice turning nasty again as he turned back to Winky. “You found this wand, eh, elf? He said elf as though it were a particularly nasty word, “And you picked it up and thought you’d have some fun with it, did you?”

“I is not doing magic with it, sir!” said Winky in a desperate squeak, with tears streaming down her face and terror in her eyes. “I is… I is… I is just picking it up, sir! I is not making the Dark Mark, sir, I is not knowing how!” It might have been the saddest thing Hermione had ever seen.

Hermione swallowed, and knew she had to find her voice. “It wasn’t her!” she said, “Winky’s got a squeaky little voice, and the voice we heard doing the incantation was much deeper!” Desperately, she turned to Harry and Ron, because they had heard it too. “It didn’t sound anything like Winky, did it?”

“No, it definitely didn’t sound like an elf.” said Harry, and relief washed over Hermione.

“Yeah, it was a human voice.” Ron agreed. Surely with three witnesses…

“Well, we’ll soon see,” Mr. Diggory said nastily, “There’s a simple way of discovering the last spell a wand performed, elf, did you know that?”

Poor Winky was trembling all over,s he shook her head frantically, which caused her large ears to flap. Hermione felt helpless again. Then Mr. Diggory raised his own wand, and placed it tip to tip with the found wand, Harry’s wand.

“Prior Incantato!” he roared into the night.

Hermione had never seen this particular spell performed before, but all at once, a smokey shadowy form emerged from the place where the two wands touched… and it was a great skull as well, with the same snake where the tongue ought to be. Hermione heard herself gasp. How could that be?

“Deletrius!” Shouted Mr. Diggory, causing the smokey skull to vanish as quickly as it had appeared. Then he looked savagely at Winky again. “So!” he said, almost as loudly as he had performed the spell.

“I is not doing it!” Winky cried out in her tiny voice, still convulsing in abject terror, “I is not, I is not, I is not knowing how! I is a good elf, I isn’t using wands, I isn’t knowing how!”

“You’ve been caught red-handed, elf! Caught with the guilty wand in your hand!”

“Amos!” shouted Mr. Weasley, nearly as loudly as Mr. Diggory, “think about it… precious few wizards know how to do that spell… Where would she have learned it?”

“Perhaps Amos is suggested,” said Mr. Crouch, and his usual coolness had returned to his voice, “that I routinely teach my servants to conjure the Dark Mark?”

Nothing about this argument made any sense at all. Was this seriously how government officials handled these things?

Amos Diggory spurted out a helpless “Mr. Crouch… not… not at all…”

“You have now come very close to accusing the two people in this clearing who are least likely to conjure that Mark! Harry Potter — and myself!” he took a breath, and then said, his voice now dripping with condescension, “I suppose you are familiar with the boy’s story, Amos?”

“Of course — everyone knows…”

“And I trust you remember the many proofs I have given, over a long career, that I despise and detest the Dark Arts and those who practice them?” Mr. Crouch’s eyes were bulging nearly out of his head with anger now.

“Mr. Crouch, I — I never suggested you had anything to do with it!”

“If you accuse my elf, you accuse me, Diggory! Where else would she have learned to conjure it?”

“She — she might’ve picked it up anywhere —”

“Precisely, Amos,” Mr. Weasley cut in, “She might have picked it up anywhere… Winky?” he turned to the elf a bit more kindly than the others had done, but she still flinched, and Hermione couldn’t blame her, “Where exactly did you find Harry’s wand?”

Winky looked up at him in horror, her hands busy twisting the hem of the tea towel she wore instead of real clothing. In a tiny voice, hardly a whisper, she said, “I — I is finding it… finding it there, sir… in the trees, sir.”

“You see, Amos?” Mr. Weasley said as though he had solved the case by some sort of brilliant detective work, “Whoever conjured the Mark could have Disapparated right after they’d done it, leaving Harry’s wand behind. A clever thing to do, not using their own wand, which could have betrayed them. And Winky here had the misfortune to come across the wand moments later and pick it up.”

“But then, she’d only have been a few feet away from the real culprit!” Diggory barked again, “Elf? Did you see anyone?”

At this, Winky began to tremble worse than ever. She looked positively miserable as her eyes flicked from face to face, and she seemed to be having trouble making herself speak at all. She took a great gulp of air and managed to say, “I is seeing no one, sir… no one…”

“Amos,” said Mr. Crouch curtly, “I am fully aware that, in your ordinary course of events, you would want to take Winky into your department for questioning. I ask you, however, to allow me to deal with her.”

It registered to Hermione that she was witnessing one member of the wizarding government asking another member of the government to flagrantly break a law. Mr. Diggory looked displeased, but he didn’t say no. Hermione didn’t want Winky to go in for questioning (hadn’t Diggory berated her enough?) but this was such a breach of ethics…

“You may rest well assured,” said Mr. Crouch in his cold voice, “that she will be punished.

At those words, Winky loooked up into his eyes, her own eyes filled with tears again. “M-m-master… M-m-master, p-p-please…” she said desperately.

Mr. Crouch looked back at her, his eyes cast downward, and it was a cold, pitiless gaze. He didn’t care for Winky one bit. Then he looked up, not addressing her, but speaking to no one in particular, “Winky has behaved tonight in a manner I would not have believed possible. I told her to remain in the tent. I told her to stay there while I went to sort out the trouble. And I find that she disobeyed me. This means clothes.”

The gifting of proper clothing, Hermione recalled, was the one way a wizard could set a house elf free. The strange rags they always wore (like the tea towel Winky was now clutching) were, as Harry had once said to her, “a mark of their enslavement.”

“No!” Winky’s shriek pierced the night, and she prostrated herself at Mr. Crouch’s feet. “No master! Not clothes, not clothes!” she seemed, if possible, more frightened of this possibility than of anything else that had happened thus far. She was sobbing and clutching her tea towel as though it were the only thing in all the world that mattered to her.

“But she was frightened!” Hermione heard her own voice say, “Your elf’s scared of heights, and those wizards in masks were levitating people! You can’t blame her for wanting to get out of their way!” she may not have understood why Winky wanted to remain employed by Mr. Crouch, but she could clearly see that was what the elf wanted, and that she was still being treated unfairly, despite her innocence.

Mr. Crouch took a step backward, away from Winky. He looked at the creature who had worked for him for goodness knows hold long as though she were nothing more than something disgusting stuck to his shoe. Then, to Hermione’s surprise, Mr. Crouch’s cold gaze met her own.

“I have no use for a house elf who disobeys me,” he said coolly, “I have no use for a servant who forgets what is due to her master, and to her master’s reputation.”

All of the humans in the clearly were silent, but it was far from quiet. Winky sobbed so loudly that it echoed, it filled up the whole night, her grief was big enough to fill up the whole world. Hermione wanted to cry with her, wanted to reach out to her, tell her she would find a way to help… somehow.

Then Mr. Weasley said “Well, I think I’ll take my lot back to the tent, if nobody’s got any objections. Amos, that wand’s told us all it can — if Harry could have it back, please —”

Amos handed the wand back to Harry, and Harry put it in his pocket.

“Come on, you three,” Mr. Weasley said. Ron and Harry moved toward him, but Hermione couldn’t take her eyes from Winky as she sobbed. Then Mr. Weasley said “Hermione!” and she knew she had to go, she knew there was nothing, she, a fourth year muggle-born witch, could do. Bitterly, she put one foot in front of another, and followed.

After they’d walked out of the clearing, and onto the path, she said “What’s going to happen to Winky?”

“I don’t know,” was all Mr. Weasley said in reply.

Hermione sucked on the cool night air. “The way they were treating her! Mr. Diggory calling her ‘elf’ all the time… and Mr. Crouch! He knows she didn’t do it and he’s still going to sack her…” for that was what it was as far as Winky was concerned, a sacking, she was sure of it, “He didn’t care how frightened she’d been, or how upset she was… it was like she wasn’t even human.”

“Well, she’s not.” Ron said callously.

“That doesn’t mean she hasn’t got feelings, Ron.” she said, desperate to make him see, “It’s disgusting the way —”

“Hermione, I agree with you,” Mr. Weasley cut her off abruptly, “but now is not the time to discuss elf rights. I want to get back to the tent as fast as we can.” Then he looked around as though he had only just noticed something, “What happened to the others?”

“We lost them in the dark,” Ron said. “Dad, why was everyone so uptight about that skull thing?”

With the practice that only came from being Ronald Weasley’s friend, Hermione forced herself not to groan.

“I’ll explain everything back at the tent,” Mr. Weasley said.

When the reached the edge of the wood, their progress was impeded. A large crowd had gathered, probably of others emerging from the wood, and looking for answers. Many of them must have recognized Arthur Weasley as a Ministry official, because all at once they surged forward.

“What’s going on in there?”

“Who conjured it?

“Arthur — it’s not — Him?”

“Of course it’s not Him,” said Mr. Weasley impatiently. “We don’t know who it was; it looks like they Disapparated. Now excuse me, please, I want to get to bed.”

He led them through the terrified crowd and back into the campsite without another word. All was quiet now, the masked and hooded figures had gone, though the evidence still remained in the form of smoking and crushed tents. Thankfully, their two tents remained standing, and Charlie’s head was poking out of the boys’ one.

“Dad, what’s going on?” he called through the darkness, “Fred, George, and Ginny got back okay, but the others —”

Hermione heaved a sigh of relief that Ginny and the twins had made it back to the tents.

Mr. Weasley said “I’ve got them here,” and he bent down to enter the tent himself, with Harry, Ron, and Hermione following after.

It was brighter inside the tent, and it still smelled of cats. Bill was sitting at the little kitchen table, holding a bedsheet to his arm, which was bleeding profusely. Charlie sat beside him with a large rip in his shirt, and Percy was sporting a bloody nose. Ginny, Fred, and George, however, seemed unhurt, though all had the same wide eyed expression.

“No.” Mr. Weasley said, suddenly sounded exhausted, and lowering himself into a chair. “We found Barty Crouch’s elf holding Harry’s wand, but we’re none the wiser about who actually conjured the Mark.” he looked older than he actually was.

“What?” said Bill, Charlie, and Percy together.

“Harry’s wand?” said Fred.

“Mr. Crouch’s elf?” said Percy, sounding thunderstruck.

With much talking over each other, Hermione, Harry, Ron, and Mr. Weasley, all explained what had happened to the others. They listened with their mouths agape, and when they’d finally finished the tale, Percy looked indignant.

“Well,” he said, “Mr. Crouch is quite right to get rid of an elf like that! Running away when he’d expressly told her not to… embarrassing him in front of the whole Ministry… how would that have looked, if she’d been brought up in front the Department for the REgulation and Control—”

“She didn’t do anything!” Hermione cut him off, she couldn’t help it, “she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Percy looked shocked, but she didn’t care.

“Hermione, a wizard in Mr. Crouch’s position can’t afford a house elf who’s going to run amok with a wand!” he said. She knew he wanted to defend the boss he admired, but this was too much.

“She didn’t run amok! She just picked it up off the ground!” she said, and everyone stared at her.

“Look, can someone just explain what that skull thing was?” Ron cut in, “It wasn’t hurting anyone… Why’s it such a big deal.”

She took a deep, steadying breath. “I told you,” she said, hoping she sounded calm and patient, “It’s You-Know-Who’s symbol, Ron.” he looked at her blankly, so she added, “I read about it in The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts.”

“And it hasn’t been seen for thirteen years,” Mr. Weasley added in a rather quiet voice. “Of course people panicked… it was almost like seeing You-Know-Who back again.”

“I don’t get it,” said Ron, and it was hard to believe he had grown up his entire life around witches and wizards, “I mean… it’s still only a shape in the sky….”

“Ron, You-Know-Who and his followers sent up the Dark Mark into the air whenever they killed,” Mr. Weasley said gently, “The terror it inspired… you have no idea, you’re too young. Just picture coming home and finding the Dark Mark hovering over your house, and know what you’re about to find inside….” Mr. Weasley seemed lost in the memory, and he even winced slightly. “Everyone’s worst fear… the very worst…”

There was a silence. Bill removed the sheet from his arm to check his cut, and then said, “Well, it didn’t help us tonight, whoever conjured it. It scared the Death Eaters away the moment they saw it. They all Disapparated before we’d got near enough to unmask any of them. We caught the Robertses before they hit the ground, though. They’re having their memories modified right now.”

Hermione shivered at the words “memories modified” and she found herself lost deep in thought, as Mr. Weasley explained what Death Eaters were to Harry and Ron, two boys who seemed perpetually terrified of learning any history. She thought of poor Mr. Roberts, his brain already addled from a few too many memory charms. And his poor wife! And the kids! And then she thought of Winky… and what on earth would happen to her now. She winced when she heard Harry Potter say “Voldemort,” four years in the wizarding world had taught her to fear that name. She looked up from her thoughts…

“Sorry, what were You-Know-Who’s supporters up to, levitating Muggles?” Harry was saying, “I mean, what was the point?”

“The point?” Mr. Weasley said with a hollow laugh. “Harry, that’s their idea of fun. Half the Muggle killings back when You-Know-Who was in power were done for fun. I suppose they had a few drinks tonight and couldn’t resist reminding us all that lots of them are still at large. A nice little reunion for them.”

However worried she was for the Roberts family, Hermione was suddenly overcome with the feeling that it was a great relief they had survived at all.

“But if they were the Death Eaters,” Ron said, looking puzzled, “Why did they Disapparate when they saw the Dark Mark? They’d have been pleased to see it, wouldn’t they?”

Bill caught Hermione’s eye across the tiny table, and rolled his eyes ever so slightly, “Use your brains, Ron,” he said loudly. “If they really were Death Eaters, they worked very hard to keep out of Azkaban when You-Know-Who lost power, and told all sorts of lies about him forcing them to kill and torture people. I bet they’d be even more frightened than the rest of us to see him come back. They denied they’d ever been involved with him when he lost his powers, and went back to their daily lives…. I don’t reckon he’d be over-pleased with them, do you?”

“So…” Hermione began, thinking, “Whoever conjured the Dark Mark… were they doing it to show support for the Death Eaters, or to scare them away?”

“Your guess is as good as ours, Hermione,” said Mr. Weasley, and again that tired look took over his entire face, aging him ten years. “But I’ll tell you this… it was only the Death Eaters who ever knew how to conjure it. I’d be very surprised if the person who did it hadn’t been a Death Eater once, even if they’re not now…. Listen,” he said abruptly changing his tone, “it’s very late, and if your mother hears what’s happened she’ll be worried sick. We’ll get a few more hours sleep and then try to get an early Portkey out of here.”

Hermione’s head was buzzing as she walked back to the other tend with Ginny. She’d never thought about the possibility of a person being a Death Eater… and then, what, changing sides? And though she’d read and read and read everything she could about the wizarding world, she knew frighteningly little about house elves. She climbed into her bed, and tried to close her eyes, but all she could see was Winky’s tear streaked face.

They would leave early in the morning, because Mrs. Weasley would be worried. Of course, Hermione’s own mother had no idea that there was anything to worry about. Hermione suddenly wished that she did, she wished for all the world that there was no wizarding world, and no muggle world, just one world that people could share without secrets. But even that, she thought sadly, probably wouldn’t help the house elves.

***

Deconstruction / Notes On The Source Text

Phew, alright, that was a very long chapter, and a lot happened and there’s a lot to unpack here. In one way, that’s good, it’s more fun than a damn quidditch game. But in another way, well, let’s roll up our sleeves, so to speak.

First of all, I’ve noticed that I’m falling into some habits with the rewrite, at least one of which I’d like to explain. I think it’s important, because people often comment talking about how they remember the story, or “wow so and so sounds like a jerk” or whatever, and there are some differences between my version and Rowling’s version.

What I’m not changing: Dialogue, or at least the text part of the dialogue. I’m also not moving any plot points or changing any settings. What happens in Hermione’s version of events is more or less what happens in Harry’s version (although, obviously, when they’re apart from each other, I have to make stuff up and extrapolate things, which is what makes this fan-fic, and also what makes it fun).

But because it’s from Hermione’s perspective, I am taking quite a bit of liberty with how I describe things. In one of the earlier chapters, nearly everything Percy Weasley said had a negative adjective attached to it in the original text. It was all “Percy said pompously” and “Percy said with annoyance” and I took all of that out. But I also adjust some punctuation within the dialogue from time to time (I try to keep it to a minimum, but sometimes it really really needs it) and really think about all of the language AROUND what is being said. What does the scene look like? What’s Hermione’s relationship to these people? How does she view these events? How is her perspective different than Harry’s?

And one thing I have done the vast majority of the time, and I think this is worth talking about, is that Hermione thinks of people as people, regardless of their magical status. In the books, as soon as Harry crosses the threshold into the wizarding world each year, he starts referring to all men as “wizards” and all women as “witches” (groups of mixed gender are “wizards”) and if someone is obviously non-magical he’ll refer to them as a “muggle” almost every time. Harry does this because he wants to assimilate into the magical world, and he wants to assimilate fully. He doesn’t like his non-magical life, so when he’s away from it, he’s trying to forget that it exists. He feels very strongly that this is his world, this is where he belongs, and so as clueless as he is, he’s tried to adopt the native customs and prejudices.

Hermione wants to assimilate too, in fact she needs to. But for her, it’s different. For one thing, she still has a positive relationship (more or less) with her non-magical parents, and presumably she interacts with other non-magical people throughout the holidays as well. She has to have a foot in both worlds, there is no other option, and she can’t think of her parents in the derogatory way Harry is able to think about the Dursleys. Her internal dialogue, and the way she views the world, retains a lot of her non-magical upbringing. She also is in a very different position than Harry, in terms of privilege and politics. Harry is “half-blood” but even the most ancestry obsessed wizards would take him with open arms if only he’d play by their rules. There are no such doors open to Hermione. If Voldemort’s followers take over, she will be considered no better than a muggle, possibly even worse. So from Hermione’s perspective, everyone is a person first, and magical or non-magical second.

This has been a really fun thing to change in the text. And the surprising thing (to me) is it totally changes the tone of many scenes. I thing that has always gotten under my skin about this series, I suppose, is that the books really do go out of their way to make the point over and over again that muggles are inferior. Even wizards who are very pro muggle-born WITCHES AND WIZARDS engage in a lot of muggle mocking and dehumanizing. They seem blissfully unaware that when they talk about muggles as though they were helpless infants, the people they are talking about are their friends’ families. Which brings us to another point…

The muggles being toyed with in this chapter, they aren’t something horrific Hermione sees from afar. She’s very aware that they could easily be her. So that’s a very different experience, and that matters.

Ok so obviously we’re going to talk about house elves this week but I have one other thing first. Wizard government. What is going on with that?

Recently, my wife and I were watching Legend of Korra, the sequel to Avatar the last Airbender. I mostly don’t enjoy it! And one of the reasons for that is that it is an especially blatant example of something I notice in fiction a lot: really inconsistent and nonsensical fictional governments. In one seasons, all of the decisions are made by a council of five members, but they vote on things that aren’t clearly explained and if one member is absent they just don’t get a vote so the system is super easy to rig. In the next season, there is a president and he calls all the shots, even though he wasn’t even mentioned in the first season. It’s a total mess, and it’s so messy that I can’t even focus on the plotlines because I’m so distracted that they’re going all wibbly-wobbly with something that could be relatively simple.

The Ministry of Magic isn’t quite that bad… but it’s not great, either. You can read it either as incredibly poorly written, incredibly corrupt, or a combination of those things. Presumably, since their government appears to be at least loosely based on the British system, they have some kind of laws in place for when a person or creature is suspected of a crime. Presumably, there is some kind of investigation protocol. Presumably, at least some of these details are slightly more than just tradition or “well, usually we do it this way, but it doesn’t really matter.” That casualness is dangerous when it comes to government, because it can easily turn into “well, usually private citizens have rights, but it doesn’t really matter.” And it DOES turn into that, it happens all the time.

So, you have what happens here. They’re at a massive international event, and a crisis occurs… and there’s no plan, no system, no one knows what they’re goddamn job is. It’s just “all hands on deck” to fight the death eaters (which happens conveniently off camera, because that fight also makes no sense, it’s not a fist fight why did the Weasley boys sustain the injuries they did and not magical ones?) and then a rather random assortment of Ministry employees come upon the place where the Dark Mark was conjured in the forest. I’m sorry, but where is magical law enforcement? Maybe some of the nameless faces in that group happened to be them? Why are we referring to Crouch, Diggory, and Weasley, for all of our decisions about a law enforcement matter? I mean sure, if they suspect Winky, she’ll probably be transferred to the Department for the Control and Disposal of Magical Creatures, but they haven’t even agreed she’s a suspect yet.

Instead of investigating, or gathering evidence to investigate later, they just argue about it in the woods in front of a group of teenagers. And all of their decisions are based on prejudice. Diggory suspects Winky because he does not like elves, that’s clear. He only backs down out of fear of insulting Crouch. When Harry is brought up, he’s instantly cleared because “you’re aware of the boy’s story, aren’t you?”

This is a terrible non-system that will never be effective. This is how you get innocent people in jail and guilty people walking free. And given that the wizard prison is basically a massive torture chamber… This has some very serious implications.

Of course, I’m talking about all of this in-world, from a Watsonian perspective rather than a Doylistic one. One of my favorite things about Ana Mardoll’s deconstructions is her insistence that authors make decisions in their writing, and we are allowed to talk about why they made the decisions that they did, and if those decisions were not the best. We don’t have to perform the mental gymnastics to make it make sense if it doesn’t make sense.

Except, because I’m doing this as a re-write working within the confines of the seven book canon, I have to think in a Watsonian way. I have to do those backflips to accept this as reality so I can work with it. It’s frustrating. I think in part, the wizarding government is just poorly written (and don’t get me started on their economy and the runaway inflation rate). And I like the series a lot, but no author is without their flaws and weaknesses! But since the definition of this project requires not changing the plot… I have to work with it as it is.

Which brings us to… house elves. I don’t even want to write about them, to be quite honest. I had the way they’re used in the series, but in this book in particular. I really can’t think of anything, any way to make it defensible, that Rowling started this out with a LITERAL slavery plotline… and then jumped to “but they’re happier being slaves than free and Hermione’s just a bit uppity and won’t listen to reason.” Like, the argument has been made over and over again that slavery was someone better for enslaved people historically… usually by slaveholders or people who benefit directly from slave labor. It is inexcusable to write a series of books that say “that may be so, but it just so happens that in this one imaginary case that I brought up, slavery really WAS better!”

House elves are most likely based on brownies, which are a specific kind of fae/elf thing that does housework. My understand of brownies (and this is from a book I no longer have, so unfortunately no link, and I may be way off base here) is that they help with housework, mostly at night, and stay away from people. Unlike some other kinds of fae though, they don’t like thank yous, and thanks and tributes to them just offend them. If you thank a brownie, they’ll just take off, and then you have to do your own chores. But that bit is key, brownies come and go as they please… and they can take up with a new household quite easily. They don’t like “being bossed around” they just like doing housework.So Rowling took that mythology (or something similar) and twisted it into a reality where wizards are in control and the elves are literally enslaved… but they like it. No. No, no, no no, no.

Everything about the way house elves are written, even when they are being verbally abused, is written to make them less sympathetic. They’re written like goddamn cartoons. Rowling can’t write Winky crying her eyes out without mentioning that her nose is “bulbous” and her ears are “bat-like.” House elves may not be humans, but they certainly are people. Time and time again, the text will begin to make that clear… and then undermine it.

Hermione Granger can’t do that, though, she can’t turn her back on these weird creatures just because they make no sense. She’s going to try to help, and she’s going to get hell for it.

I’m going to level with you here. This is only my second “reading” of this book. Typically, I take my Harry Potter in audiobook format, I’m especially fond of the Stephen Fry readings (although I lost all of my audiobooks when I lost my ancient computer so *sobs forever*). This means that I more of less have the series memorized and can rattle whole scenes off by heart. It also means that I apparently just zone out and focus on something else during each and every house elf scene, because house elves make me extremely uncomfortable. I do not find them cute or humorous in the slightest, and I have a kind of cognitive dissonance over a series that I love so much (I swear it, I really do love it) including such awful plot arcs of joyous exploitation.

I realized that writing out the Winky scene in this chapter, because as well as I think I know these books, I didn’t really know that scene. I knew vaguely that Mr. Diggory was unfair to her, that she cried and was scared, and that at the end she was forcibly freed/fired. But I wasn’t actually ready for it to be as bad as it was.

It is really really bad! And I cannot imagine that anyone could witness that without being overcome with sympathy for her. Ron’s acceptance that this is just the way things are is abominable, but so is Mr. Weasley’s “I agree, but it’s neither the time nor the place” attitude (because there never will be a right time or place to improve conditions for elves for Mr. Weasley, will there?). And the fact that Harry, who is supposedly some kind of hero, could see that, a scene that was in large part created by his dropping his damn wand in the woods… and go on to think that Hermione is unreasonable for trying to change the systems that oppress elves, is absolutely horrifying.

Hello hi everyone! I said I would be out for about a month, and now it’s been four months, and I hate constantly apologizing but I’m back. Here, I have a fresh chapter for you, and it’s possibly the worst writing I’ve done on one of these yet (which I’ll get to in the deconstruction after the text), but I’m posting it anyway, so I hope you enjoy.

If you’re just joining us, I’m writing a (gulp) chapter-for-chapter retelling of Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire from the perspective of Hermione Granger. It’s called Hermione Granger And The Goblet Of Sexism. We’re only eight chapters in, and already we have met a lot of sexism. Ok, let’s get into it, shall we?

Hermione Granger And The Goblet Of Sexism
Chapter Eight: The Quidditch World Cup

Hermione held her program against her chest, as the whole group walked into the wood, following a lantern-lit trail. It was odd, because she could hear a massive crowd all around them, practically buzzing with excitement and anticipation, as they were in a wood, she could hardly see them at all. She imagined hundreds, maybe even thousands, of witches and wizards, all in their ridiculous “muggle” outfits, on their way to the biggest wizarding event of the year. After twenty minutes, the twins singing and Ginny loudly enumerating the many qualities of the Irish quidditch team, they emerged from the trees.

Just in front of them was the biggest stadium Hermione had ever seen in her life, and it looked as though it were made of solid gold. Ginny pointed up to the very top. Hermione heard Mr. Weasley say “seats a hundred thousand,” to Harry, who was standing next to her. “Ministry task force of five hundred have been working on it all year. Muggle Repelling Charms on every inch of it. Every time Muggles have got anywhere near here all year, they’ve suddenly remembered urgent appointments and had to dash away again… bless them.” And with that, Mr. Weasley led the group to the nearest entrance.

She had the peculiar feeling she often had when she heard witches and wizards discussing muggles. It was as though they were discussing her, but really they weren’t. Only… could she have stumbled into something like this as a child, before it was clear that she was in fact a witch? How many times had her own mind been tampered with? There was no way to know, and she tried to shake it off as they headed up the stairs of the stadium. The stairs were carpeted in a lush purple, and the walls were that odd gold color, and seemed almost to glow. They kept climbing and climbing, as the rest of the crowd headed out through doors to the stands, until they found themselves at the very top of the staircase.

They were at the very highest point of the stadium, perfectly in the center, in a small box with around twenty very fancy purple-and-gilt chairs arranged in two rows. Hermione had heard that their seats were good, but she hadn’t really thought on what that must mean until this moment. She couldn’t believe the Weasleys had invited her! Glad she wasn’t afraid of heights, she took her seat between Ron and Harry, and then she looked down.A hundred thousand people below were taking their own seats, which rose in levels around the long oval field. Everything seemed to have a rather peculiar golden glow, similar to what she’d noticed on the staircase. She wondered what spell created that, and why, and made a mental note to look it up once she again had library access. The field was just like any muggle field set up for an important sporting event, except of course that this one was set up for a quidditch game. At either end of the field stood three goal hoops, fifty feet high. And right across from where they were sitting there was a gigantic blackboard, which seemed to be showing magical advertisements.

Hermione didn’t find that very interesting, but she kept watching the massive crowd of spectators. Most were too far away for her to see much about them, but she found she liked wondering about them anyway. Where they had come from, how long their journeys had been…

Just then, she heard Harry talking to someone. “Dobby?” he said, in a tone full of incredulity, and she turned to see where he was looking.

He was talking to a small creature seated at the end of the row behind them. It had very large ears, somewhat like a bat’s, and their legs were so short that their little bare feet stuck out on the seat in front of them. The face was hidden behind hands that were more humanlike than the rest of the features… and Hermione felt instantly sorry for the creature. It suddenly lowered its hands to look at Harry, and Hermione saw two big, sad, brown eyes.

“Did sir just call me Dobby?” the creature squeaked, in a higher voice than she could have imagined possible. Then it dawned on Hermione, this must be a house elf.

“Sorry,” Harry was saying, “I just thought you were someone I knew.”

“But I knows Dobby too, sir!” the elf squeaked back at him. Hermione had never seen a house elf, but she remembered that Harry Potter had met one called Dobby two years ago. “My name is Winky, sir — and you, sir —” the elf’s eyes opened wider with reverence, and each ‘sir’ dripped with respect, “You is surely Harry Potter!”

Apparently, even the house elves knew all about her friend.

“Yeah, I am.” he said.

“But Dobby talks of you all the time, sir!” Winky said. Winky was wearing a tea towel draped about her, and Hermione was now fairly certain that Winky was a her, though of course she supposed not knowing much about elves, she could be wrong.

“How is he?” said Harry. “How’s freedom suiting him?”

“Ah, sir,” said Winky shaking her head, “ah sir, meaning no disrespect, sir, but I is not sure you did Dobby a favor, sir, when you is setting him free.”

“Why? What’s wrong with him?”

“Freedom is going to Dobby’s head, sir,” said Winky, looking rather sad. “Ideas about his station, sir. Can’t get another position, sir.”

House elves tended to serve a wizarding family, though Hermione didn’t know any wizards personally who had one (that she was aware of, anyway). They could only be freed by being offered proper human clothing by their masters. The elf Harry had befriended in their second year had belonged to the Malfoy family, and from what Hermione knew of the story, Harry had somewhat tricked Lucius Malfoy into freeing the elf. She didn’t know what all this business was about ‘ideas about his station’ though. She watched the elf, thinking hard.

Harry said “why not?”

“He is wanting paying for his work, sir.” she said it like it was a dirty thing to say.

“Paying? Well — why shouldn’t he be paid?” Harry said, as though he was unaware of Winky’s obvious distress.

“House-elves is not paid, sir!” Winky said in a muffled squeak. “No, no, no. I says to Dobby, I says, go and find yourself a nice family and settle down, Dobby. He is getting up to all sorts of high jinks, sir, what is unbecoming to a house-elf. You goes racketing around like this, Dobby, I says, and the next thing I hear you’s up in front of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, like some common goblin.”

She sounded utterly terrified. Harry Potter just said “Well, it’s about time he had a bit of fun!”

“House-elves is not supposed to have fun, Harry Potter! House-elves does what they is told. I is not liking heights at all, Harry Potter, but my master sends me to the Top Box and I comes, sir.”

“Why’s he sent you up here, if he knows you don’t like heights?”

“Master — master wants me to save him a seat, Harry Potter. He is very busy.” She tilted her head to the empty seat beside here. Hermione was beginning to understand why she looked so frightened. Then she said “Winky is wishing she is back in master’s tent, Harry Potter, but Winky does what she is told. Winky is a good house-elf.” and she hid her face in her hands again.

Ron, who had only been half paying attention to the exchange, said “so that’s a house-elf? Weird things, aren’t they?”

“Dobby was weirder,” was all that Harry replied. It was just like the two of them to see a frightened creature and only notice that it was a bit odd. She sighed, and opened her velvet covered program. She may as well know what was going on, after all.

“A display from the team mascots will precede the match” she read aloud.

“Oh, that’s always worth watching,” Mr. Weasley leaned towards them from several seats over. “National teams bring creatures from their native land, you know, to put on a bit of a show.”

She read the names of the players, and a bit about the history of the world cup, as the box gradually filled up around them. She was more interested in the crowd below than in the well-to-do wizards who were coming into the box, though she did notice when the Minister for Magic, Cornelius Fudge, arrived. He introduced Harry Potter to a Bulgarian Wizard, and Hermione was happy that it wasn’t her in the limelight. Then he said “ah, and here’s Lucius!” and she turned around in spite of herself.

And so it was, Lucius Malfoy, the very wizard Harry had freed that other house elf from, along with someone who looked to be his wife, and his son, Draco, who was in the same year as herself at Hogwarts. He was in slitherin house, and he particularly hated muggle-born witches and wizards, and appeared to reserve a special revulsion for Hermione herself.

“Ah, Fudge,” said Mr. Malfoy, clearly keen to show he was on familiar terms, “How are you? I don’t think you’ve met my wife, Narcissa? Or our son, Draco?”

“How do you do, how do you do?” Fudge said, smiling like a politician, “And allow me to introduce to you Mr. Oblansk — Obalonsk — Mr. — well, he’s the Bulgarian Minister of Magic, and he can’t understand a word I’m saying anyway, so never mind. And let’s see who else — you know Arthur Weasley, I daresay?”

It was as plain as day that the two men didn’t like each other. Hermione had once witnessed them have an actual fight in a bookshop, and she wondered if Mr. Fudge knew the first thing about any of the people he was speaking with.

“Good lord, Arthur,” Mr. Malfoy said softly, looking up and down the row of seats, “What did you have to sell to get seats in the Top Box? Surely your house wouldn’t have fetched this much?”

“Lucius has just given a very generous contribution to St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, Arthur.” Fudge blundered on, “He’s here as my guest.”

“How — how nice,” said Mr. Weasley, with a very strained smile.

And then she noticed that Lucius Malfoy was looking right at her. She fought the urge to avert her eyes, though she felt herself go slightly pink and hoped no one would notice. Of course, he knew very well who she was, and who her parents were. He hated muggle born witches and wizards as much as his son did, and his stare was a reminder that no matter what she did, in the wizarding world she would always be second-class. It stung, but she was glad to have Harry and Ron beside her. Draco gave all three of them a dirty look, and then all the Malfoys sat down and the moment was over.

Ludo pulled his wand from his quidditch robes, directed it as his own throat, and said “Sonorus!” and then he spoke over the roar of the crowd, his voice now magically projected, echoing over them, booming into every corner of the stands.

“Ladies and gentlemen… welcome! Welcome to the final of the four hundred and twenty-second Quidditch World Cup!”

Well, she had to give it to wizards, they certainly could keep a thing going. The spectators screamed and clapped, and it felt as though something incredible was beginning.

“And now, without further ado, allow me to introduce… the Bulgarian Nation Team Mascots!”

Applause and cheers erupted from the right hand side of the stands, which were a sea of scarlet. She heard Mr. Weasley say “I wonder what they’ve brought… Aaah! Veela!”

Something like a hundred women glided out onto the field, except she guessed that they weren’t really women, not exactly. For one thing, Mr. Weasley had said creatures from their native lands, and for another thing, the veela seemed to have extra shiny skin, and there was something wrong with their hair as well. They did a dance, which wasn’t bad, but she’d seen muggle dancers who were better.

All of a sudden, she noticed that the boys on either side of her were acting strangely. Harry looked like he was about to jump from the box, he’d already stood up and moved towards the edge, and Ron wasn’t far behind. “Harry, what are you doing?” she said, in confusion. Then the music stopped, and suddenly there was a lot of angry yelling all around. People appeared to be… protesting the end of the dance? And it seemed to be primarily the male wizards, too. Ron seemed to be shredding the shamrocks on his hat for some reason…

“You’ll be wanting that,” Mr. Weasley said, taking the had from his son, “once Ireland have had their say.

“Huh?” Ron said, stupidly.

“Honestly!” Hermione said, and she finally reached forward and pulled Harry, bodily, back into his own seat.

“And now,” boomed Ludo’s voice again, “kindly put your wands in the air… for the Irish National Team Mascots!”

Well, they were more entertaining than the weird dancing-ladies, at least. What looked like a great green-and-gold comet came zooming into the stadium, did a circuit of it, and then split into two smaller comets, each hurtling towards the goal posts. Then a rainbow suddenly sprang up and arched across the field, connecting the two balls of green and gold light. The crowd “oooohed” and “aaaahed,” and Hermione thought it was a bit like fireworks. Then the rainbow raded away, and the balls of light came back together, and merged into a great shimmering shamrock. It soared up and over the stands, and something seemed to be falling from it, something oddly metallic.

“Excellent!” Ron yelled as the shamrock went over their heads. Heavy gold coins were falling from it, and when she looked up (careful to dodge the falling coins) she saw that the shamrock itself was actually composed of tiny bearded figures, each with a lamp of gold or green. So, they were leprechauns.

Ron was stuffing fistfulls of gold into Harry’s hand saying “There you go, for the Omnioculars! Now you’ve got to buy me a Christmas present, ha!”

Even in the wizarding world, matters of money could be so uncomfortable.

Eventually the shamrock dissolved, and the leprechauns drifted down onto the field. Far below on the grass, on one side sat the leprechauns, and on the other side the veela, each ready to watch their own team in the match, she supposed.

And he went through all the players names, booming them out as they raced onto the field. When he said “Krum” Hermione heard Ron practically screeching “that’s him that’s him!” and he wasn’t the only one, either. No doubt, Krum was a crowd favorite.

Then Bagman introduced the Irish National Quidditch Team, with the same pomp and circumstance, and then the referee, who was called Hassan Mostafa, and was from Egypt. Then the match finally began.

Hermione knew all the rules of Quidditch, she knew the history of the sport better than any wizard, and she never missed a Gryffindor match at Hogwarts, yet she just couldn’t get as excited as the others about the game. She wasn’t sure why, but she just couldn’t. She found everything about this match to be interesting, and she certainly appreciated how much different it was from a school match, it really gave her a feel for the scope of the thing. But beyond that… she wasn’t sure, but at least when it was her friends and classmates playing, she could care about them doing well. But these players were strangers… Still, this was the World Cup! She tried to make herself focus. She took a moment to acquaint herself with the many options on her Omnioculars, and then was able to zoom in to see some rather complicated flying formations done by the Irish team.

Before long, one of them scored, and Hermione found herself cheering along with the rest. Harry said “What? But Levski’s got the Quaffle!” in a confused voice, and she knew at once that he’d slowed down his Omnioculars.

“Harry, if you’re not going to watch at normal speed, you’re going to miss things!” she reminded him.

It was an intense match. The Irish team was nearly unstoppable, they worked in a tight formation and scored goal after goal. Before long is was thirty to zero, and the Bulgarian team was playing aggressively too, whacking bludgers at the Irish ferociously, forcing them to break formation. Finally, one of the Bulgarian chasers managed to score a goal, and Mr. Weasley bellowed “fingers in your ears!” as the veela started to dance in celebration. She hoped the boys would keep their sense.

Then something extraordinary happened. The two Seekers, Krum and Lynch, plummeted through the center of the Chasers, faster than she had ever seen anyone fly before. They looked as though they were going to collide with the ground and almost without being conscious of it she heard her own voice shout “they’re going to crash!”

Well, she’d thought she wasn’t emotionally invested in quidditch.

The Irish Seeker, Lynch, did fly straight into the ground with a dull thud, but the Bulgarian Seeker, Viktor Krum, did not. He pulled out of the dive at the exact last second.

“He’ll be okay, he only got ploughed!” Charlie Weasley said reassuringly to Ginny, who looked positively horror-struck at the scene below. “Which was what Krum was after, of course…”

Yes, it was a bit different than Hogwarts Quidditch, Hermione thought.

Soon the match began again, and it was, if possible, more furious than before. Hermione couldn’t keep up with how many goals the Irish scored, and knowing that the Weasleys were all for the Irish team, she was quite happy for them. Before long they were someone leading by one hundred and thirty points to ten! When they tried to score again, the Bulgarian Keeper did something against the rules, and Bagman’s voice rang out “And — yes, it’s a penalty to Ireland!”

The leprechauns, who had risen angrily into the air a moment earlier, now darted together to form the words “HA HA HA!” and then the damn veela started to dance again. All the boys shoved their fingers into their ears in a panic, it was sort of funny actually, and then she noticed that even the referee, Hassan Mostafa seemed to be taken with the strange creatures. He was flexing his muscles and smoothing his mustache. She grabbed Harry’s arm to point it out to him, and then Ludo Bagman said “now we can’t have that! Somebody slap the referee!”

An official-looking mediwizard tore across the field with his fingers stuffed into his own ears (which looked very unofficial) and he kicked Mostafa hard in the shins. It seemed to make Mostafa snap out of it, though, and he looked quite embarrassed and then started to shout at the veela.

“And unless I’m much mistaken, Mostafa is actually attempting to send off the Bulgarian team mascots!” said Bagman’s voice. “Now there’s something we haven’t seen before…. Oh this could turn nasty….”

It did. The Bulgarian Beaters landed on either side of Mostafa and seemed to be arguing with him, gesticulating toward the leprechauns. Hermione turned her omnioculars in their direction and saw that they had spelled out the words “HEE HEE HEE.” Mostafa gave two short blasts on his whistle, and the Bulgarian Beaters flew off rather grumpily.

“Two penalties for Ireland!’ came Bagman’s voice, and the definite sound of anger came from the Bulgarian crowd.

The game somehow became even fiercer than before… the Beaters on both sides were behaving mercilessly. Then one of the Bulgarian players, Dimitrov, shot straight at Moran on the Irish side, and almost knocked her clear off her broom. The entire Irish crowd shouted “foul!” almost in unison.

The leprechauns had risen back into the air again, and now they were forming a giant hand, which made a hand gesture Mrs. Weasley would definitely not have approved of. And next thing anyone knew, the veela seemed to lose control. Rather than dancing, they launched themselves across the field and began throwing what looked very much like handfuls of fire at the leprechauns. They’re faces seemed to change… they elongated into sharp beaked bird heads… and wings were bursting from their shoulders.

Before Hermione could wonder what the boys who had been goggling over them thought of this latest development, Mr. Weasley yelled out “And that boys, is why you should never go for looks alone!” Apparently, he didn’t think she or Ginny needed such a reminder.

The chaos below was unbelievable… Ministry wizards were soon involved, attempting to separate the veela and the leprechauns with little success. And above them the match continued, all the while Bagman continued to shout out who had the quaffle, then Moran scored for Ireland, and the veela shrieked something awful, and the game went on. It was all a tumult of noise and excitement. Then somehow Viktor Krum took a bludger to the face, and he stopped in mid air, bleeding, and reaching one hand up to inspect the damage, before the referee could notice him. It looked like, at the very least, his nose was badly broken.

“Time-out! Ah, come on, he can’t play like that, look at him!” Ron shouted from one side of Hermione.“Look at Lynch!” Harry shouted, even more loudly, from the other side.

She pulled her omnioculars back up to her face just in time to see Lynch go into an incredible dive.

“He’s seen the Snitch!” Harry shouted. “He’s seen it! Look at him go!”

Lynch was diving faster and faster, and then somehow Krum was on his tail. It was incredible that he could fly at all, and flecks of blood flew through the air behind him, but he was drawing level with Lynch and “They’re going to crash!” she heard her own voice shout, as they hurtled toward the ground.

“They’re not!” roared Ron.

“Lynch is!” roared Harry.

And then there was a crash, a terrible crash, as Lynch hit the ground head on for the second time, and was immediately attacked by the angry veela.

Someone shouted “The snitch, where’s the snitch?” in a sort of panic and then she heard Harry answer back “He’s got it — Krum’s got it — it’s all over!”

And there was Krum, blood everyone, rising into the air with his fist held high. He had caught the golden snitch.

The stands were total and utter confusion. It took a few moments for the Irish supporters to realize that their team had just won. But slowly the crowd began to rumble, and then to cheer and shout and scream with delight. Bagman’s magical voice shouted “IRELAND WINS!” and even he sounded a bit taken aback by it, “KRUM GETS THE SNITCH — BUT IRELAND WINS — good lord, I don’t think any of us were expecting that!”

The final score was Bulgaria: 160, Ireland: 170. Ireland had won, by only ten points.

“What did he catch the Snitch for?” Ron bellowed, all the while jumping up and down, applauding, “He ended it when Ireland were a hundred and sixty points ahead, the idiot!”

“He knew they were never going to catch up!” Harry shouted over Hermione at ron, “The Irish Chasers were too good… He wanted to end it on his terms, that’s all…”

Hermione, though, found herself wondering if the young man still covered in blood was alright. She leaned forward to watch him land, and a crowd of men who she guessed were mediwizards rushed towards him, “He was very brave, wasn’t he?” she said, “He looks a terrible mess…”

Soon his team members were surrounding him, looking dejected, as the celebration went on all around them. “Vell, ve fought bravely,” said a voice, which sounded rather gloomy, from a bit behind where Hermione and her friends were seated.

“You can speak English!” said Fudge, sounding outraged, and Hermione turned around to see that the first speaker had been the Bulgarian Minister of Magic. “And you’ve been letting me mime everything all day.

“Vell, it vos very funny,” said the Bulgarian minister, and Hermione giggled softly to herself.

Then Bagman’s voice roared “And as the Irish team performs a lap of honor, blanked by their mascots, the Quidditch World Cup itself is brought into the Top Box!”

She turned quickly, and then her eyes were suddenly dazzled by a bright white light, the Top Box was being magically illuminated so that everyone could see inside. Peering toward the entrance they’d come through earlier, she saw two men — panting a bit with the effort — carrying a massive golden cup into the box. They handed it to Cornelius Fudge, who looked somewhat perturbed, probably still thinking about the Bulgarian minister.

And to Hermione’s surprise, into the box came the seven Bulgarian players… including Krum, who apparently had refused the help of the mediwizards, and was still spectacularly covered in his own blood. She wondered what it must have felt like, and then she noticed he was still gripping the snitch, apparently as unwilling to give it up as he was to have his wounds seen to. Each player shook hands with their own minister, and then Cornelius Fudge, and Bagman announced their names. When Krum’s name was announced, the whole stadium went wild. Despite being on the losing team, and coated in blood, he was still a crowd favorite.

And then it was time for the Irish team. The performed the same ritual, only much more joyously, and then they lifted the cup itself into the air. Hermione thought the whole thing had been rather more exciting than she’d anticipated.

Then she saw Fred and George Weasley, who scrambled over the backs of their own seats to reach Ludo Bagman, who said (in his normal voice), “Ah yes… yes, I owe you… how much?”

Deconstruction / Note On The Source Text

Ok, let’s get one thing out of the way first. This chapter was really horrid for me. Part of that is just that it’s really hard to get back into something after a long break… the other part is that I really really just don’t like sports. I’m one of those people who just doesn’t get sports, can’t get worked up about them, never even knows what sports season it is. If watching sports is your thing, that’s great, you like what you like. I just… don’t… and I come from a really sporty family and I still don’t get it and I never have and I never will. So if I’ve done a bad job at describing this sports game, I’m not surprised, and I’m sorry.

But to be fair to myself, the text didn’t exactly do me any favors.

Harry Potter is a boy who plays Quidditch at school, and is something of a Quidditch star at school, but knows very little about professional Quidditch. Hermione Granger is a girl who does not play Quidditch and isn’t terribly fond of flying, but has read up on the sport and understands its history and rules better than her jock friends. Throughout the series, Hermione is asked to play two roles when it comes to the game of Quidditch: on the one hand she is required to understand each and every match perfectly, while on the other hand she is required to be a girl who actually “just doesn’t get it.”

This chapter is no exception. The few lines Hermione has (and she has very few lines) absolutely make it necessary to the plot that Hermione is watching the game very closely and fully comprehends everything that is going on. Yet, later on in the book, she’ll be mocked mercilessly for getting a Quidditch term wrong, calling it a “wonky feint.” Hermione can’t win, she has to know literally everything, but also she has to be a stupid girl and not know things, and then when she doesn’t know things she gets yelled at for it.

Being Hermione Granger must be exhausting.

When I started this project, I saw Hermione a bit differently than I do now. I mean, she’s bookish, she’s concerned about equality, it was easy to identify with her and see her as a sort of proto-feminist (a bit like I was at that age). Now I don’t know if that’s entirely wrong, but she’s definitely more complex than that. For one thing, she’s incredibly quiet, preferring so far to observe her louder male friends and take in her surroundings. And now I’m stuck on this thing about the Quidditch, and I can’t help but think… Hermione Granger is trying to Win At Patriarchy.

She’s a girl who’s friends with boys, who’s willing to wear the label of the exceptional woman (at least for now) and accept their “you’re not like other girls” type of backhanded compliments. She has (thus far in the series) been perfectly un-sexual, and perfectly helpful, making her a suitable friend to have in your group even if she is a girl and a brain. And she successfully performs her feminine duty around sports as well. She is perfectly, impeccably, informed on all matters athletic, and yet willing to ignore her own knowledge and play the fool so as not to threaten their fragile masculinity.

I remember my mom, a woman who loves many sports, complaining about these double standards with my dad’s friends. She would be invited along to watch a game, expected to be able to keep up (and she could), and then they’d say something about what a nice wife she was for being willing to sit through it for my dad’s sake. She wasn’t nearly as nice as Hermione is about it, and usually said something biting about how she’d been into basketball longer than him or whatever.

But the game is rigged. As a girl, Hermione will never be able to get a real leg up in the patriarchal system. She’ll be mocked and ridiculed just the same, until they’re ready to objectify her. Basically, this is a taste of what’s to come… this stuff is going to get darker.

Other things in this chapter!

Hermione meets, or rather almost meets, a house elf for the very first time. We’ll note that Harry does not consider introducing the elf to either of his friends (hey Harry, I get it, I’m a leo too). But this is planting a seed for our young heroine, make no mistake. Right now she’s doing what Hermione does, she’s being quiet, observing, and not jumping to any conclusions. Hermione Granger is constantly filing away information for later use, and this encounter (or lack therof) with Winky is no exception.

Also the mascots are… well… something, aren’t they? Despite my lack of interest in sporting events, I’ve been dragged to games, and the mascots I’ve seen are not the disruptive. On the one side, we have leprechauns (who I admittedly don’t know much about) who drop gold coins which will turn out to be fake but are still very heavy and probably dangerous on the crowd. On the other side we have veela, which sound very much like several misogynist fantasies combined… so beautiful, so evil, actually ugly birds, etc.

Curious, I googled.

Wikipedia says that “veela” is from Harry Potter but there is a fairy in Slavic folklore called “vila.”

The Vila are the Slavic versions of nymphs, who have power over wind, which they delight in causing storms of high winds. They live around hills, mountains, and high mounds. (cf. Leimakids, Limnades, Oceanids, Dryads, Nephele). They can appear as a ghost-like figure with a long billowing cloak wrapped around them.

In Polish mythology, the Wiła (pronounced [ˈviwa]), and in South-Slavic mythology theVila (Serbian pronunciation: [ʋǐːla]), are believed to be female fairy-like spirits who live in the wilderness and sometimes in the clouds. They were believed to be the spirits of women who had been frivolous in their lifetimes and now floated between here and the afterlife. They usually appear as beautiful maidens, naked or dressed in sparkling beautiful white dresses, green skirts of leaves, and special fabulous blue robes.

It is said that if even one of their hairs is plucked, the Vila will die, or be forced to change back to her true shape. A human may gain the control of a vila by stealing a piece of the vila’s skin. Once burned, though, she will disappear.

It seems apparent to me that Rowling has lifted some of these ideas to create her very own “veela.” Thankfully, she didn’t get into the skin stealing thing. But it still all feels super sexist and gross to me. Also note that all of the boys are transfixed, to the point of not being able to function and even putting themselves into very real danger (Harry almost jumps from the damn box) but the girls are all calm and collected. Everyone is heterosexual, and the veela have come to entice your menfolk with their feminine wiles, and if that doesn’t work they’ll throw fire. So yes, nothing to see here.

We also have Krum, who Hermione is clearly noticing in a very big way. This actually makes a good deal of sense to me. She’s free from the pressure to support one team or the other (Harry and Ron, excellent friends that they are, do not seem to give a single shit what Hermione thinks or feels about this game) and so she can zoom in on individual players. Krum definitely stands out.

Anyways, that’s all for this week. I’m happy to be back, and at the rate we’re going, we should be through the book in just over four and a half years.

Hermione Granger And The Goblet Of Sexism

Chapter Seven

Bagman and Crouch / Bagman and Crouch

They were, just as Mr. Weasley had said, on an empty moor. The sky was navy blue now, and a chilly mist clung to the ground. Hermione pulled herself up and brushed off the front of her jeans, while around her all the Weasleys and Harry did the same. Just in front of them were two men — two wizards — who looked rather tired and moody. One had a watch, and the other held a thick roll of parchment and a quill. Hermione could tell for certain they were wizards, because they had tried to dress as muggles, but apparently they’d never actually met any.

She sighed. One man was wearing a tweed suit paired with galoshes, the other a kilt paired with a poncho.

“Morning, Basil,” said Mr. Weasley to the kilted man, handing him the utterly disgusting boot.

“Hello there, Arthur,” Basil replied. “Not on duty, eh? It’s all right for some… We’ve been here all night… You’d better get out of the way, we’ve got a big party coming in from the Black Forest at five-fifteen. Hang on, I’ll find your campsite… Weasley…” he was searching the parchment list, while absentmindedly flicking his quill. “About a quarter of a mile’s walk over there, first field you come to. Site manager’s called Mr. Roberts.” Then he turned to Mr. Diggory and started to give him directions as well.

“Thanks, Basil,” said Mr. Weasley, and they all set off in the direction they’d been pointed. The tired group walked along in silence once more, surrounded by that eerie mist. Perhaps they were all wondering, as Hermione was, if they were indeed going in the right direction. But after about twenty minutes, she could make out a small stone cottage with a fence, and in the distance beyond it, more tents than she had ever seen in her life rising up the gentle slope of a hill towards what looked like a forest beyond. Everyone waved goodbye to the Mr. Diggory and Cedric, who were headed to a different site, and they approached the cottage door.

A man was standing in the doorway, and this man was most definitely not a wizard. She was a little surprised to see an actual muggle in the midst of all this wizarding activity, but told herself firmly that obviously they’d had no choice but to use muggle campsites for the event. Surely, she thought, they must have exhausted every other possibility before it came to this. The man standing in the doorway had a thin blond beard, and pale gray eyes the same color as the morning mist. He looked a little jumpy, Hermione though, and she instantly wondered what sort of day he must be having.

“Morning!” Mr. Weasley called out, brightly.

“Morning,” the man responded.

“Would you be Mr. Roberts?”

“Aye, I would. And who’re you?”

“Weasley — two tents, booked a couple of days ago?”

Mr. Roberts consulted a list tacked to the door, “Aye, you’ve got space up by the wood there. Just the one night?”

“That’s it,” said Mr. Weasley with a smile.

“You’ll be paying now, then”

“Ah —” and his shoulders slumped slightly, “right — certainly.” Hermione liked Mr. Weasley, or at least, she thought she did, but why had this not occurred to him before? Well, evidently, it hadn’t. Feeling helpless, she watched Mr. Weasley, stepping awkwardly away from the cottage door to stare in a perplexed sort of way at a roll of ordinary muggle money. She had just began to open her mouth, when she heard him say “Help me, Harry” rather feebly, and stopped herself.

With Harry’s consultation, he managed to pull up the correct bills, and hand them over to Mr. Roberts.

“You’re not the first one who’s had trouble with money, I had two try to pay me with great gold coins the size of hubcaps ten minutes ago.”

“Did you really?” he was trying to play it cool, but he was failing.

“Never been this crowded,” Mr. Roberts said, almost to himself, while he got Mr. Weasley his change. He looked out over the misty moor. “Hundreds of pre-bookings. People usually just turn up…”

“Is that right?” said Mr. Weasley, holding his hand out for the change, but Mr. Roberts was now lost in thought entirely.

“Aye,” he said, “People from all over. Loads of foreigners. And not just foreigners. Weirdos, you know? There’s a bloke walking ‘round in a kilt and a poncho.”

“Shouldn’t he?” Mr. Weasley said, and Hermione had to stop herself from groaning.

“It’s like some sort of… I dunno… like some sort of rally. They all seem to know each other. Like a big party.”

And at that moment, a wizard in plus-fours appeared out of thin air next to the door to the cottage. Without so much as a “hello” he turned his wand on Mr. Roberts and said “Obliviate!” rather sharply. Hermione recognized the charm at once, though she’d never seen it done in person, and it made her feel rather sick to her stomach.

Mr. Robert’s eyes slid out of focus, and all of the tension left his face, leaving it completely slack and relaxed, with a dreamy and unnerving look. His memory had been modified, that is, the spell had wiped the troubling memories of interacting with wizards from Mr. Roberts’ mind, so as he couldn’t try to sort them out anymore.

“A map of the campsite for you, and your change.” he was looking vaguely over Mr. Weasley’s shoulder.

“Thank you very much,” said Mr. Weasley.

The man in plus-fours accompanied them toward the gate to the campsite. He was obviously exhausted, and Hermione would have felt rather sorry for him if she could stop thinking about poor Mr. Roberts. As they walked on, he said “Been having a lot of trouble with him. Needs a Memory Charm ten times a day to keep him happy. And Ludo Bagman’s not helping. Trotting around talking about Bludgers and Quaffles at the top of his voice, not a worry about anti-muggle security. Blimey, I’ll be glad when this is over. See you later, Arthur.” And just like that, he disapparated.

Hermione wondered if there had ever been any research done into what kind of long term effects ten memory charms a day might have on the human brain. She decided that rather than ask about it now, she would look it up, once she was back at Hogwarts, with it’s fabulous library.

“I thought Mr. Bagman was Head of Magical Games and Sports,” Ginny said to her father. “He should know better than to talk about Bludgers near Muggles, shouldn’t he?”

Mr. Weasley smiled slightly as he answered, “He should, but Ludo’s always been a bit… well… lax about security. You couldn’t wish for a more enthusiastic head of the sports department though. He played quidditch for England himself, you know. He was the best Beater the Wimbourne Wasps ever had.”

They walked on through the campsite, between long rows of tents. The witches and wizards who were camping had, it appeared, made quite a bit of effort to look like muggles. It was sort of charming, in a way. Hermione saw what mostly looked like ordinary tents, though several had chimneys, and a few were so obviously magical she found herself saying “oh now come on!” under her breath. The decorative additions were ridiculous enough, but one tent was three stories high, and another had an entire front garden attached. Hermione wasn’t sure if she should find these mistakes funny, or be worried about security.

“Always the same,” Mr. Weasley had apparently settled on finding the situation rather humorous, “We can’t resist showing off when we get together. Ah, here we are, look, this is us.”

They were at the very top of the field, right up next to the wood, and just beyond a long row of tents was an empty space clearly meant for more. A small sign had been hammered into the ground, and it read WEEZLY.

“Couldn’t have a better spot!” said Mr. Weasley happily. “The field is just on the other side of the wood there, we’re as close as could be.” He hoisted his backpack from his shoulders. “Right,” he said with definite excitement in his voice, “no magic allowed, strictlyspeaking, not when we’re out in these numbers on Muggle land. We’ll be putting these tents up by hand! Shouldn’t be too difficult… Muggles do it all the time…” and his eyes cast about the group, as though he were looking for a muggle, and finally settled on Harry. “Here, Harry,” he said, “where do you reckon we should start?”

Harry Potter’s eyes got momentarily wide. Hermione remembered that his aunt and uncle didn’t like to take him on holiday, and guessed that he had no more idea what to do with the tents than Mr. Weasley. But Harry was a Gryffindor through and through, and was brave even in the face of tent poles. He took the first tent, still all wrapped up, from Mr. Weasley, and looked determined to have a go of it. She smiled at him.

“Well, let’s have a look at the instructions, shall we?” She said, as casually as she could.

Harry gave her a look as though she’d just passed him a life preserver, and half an hour later, with Mr. Weasley wielding the mallet and the Weasley children sitting on their packs, they finished erecting two rather shabby tents. And though it probably didn’t make much difference, what with all the obvious magic that was going on in the campsite, the Weasleys at least were in keeping with the rules.

Harry was staring at the tents with a worried look on his face. They were, of course, too small for all ten of the people who needed to sleep in them. That is, the tents were too small from the outside. Surely, it must have occurred to Harry Potter that the insides of the tents could have been magiced! She gave him a quizzical look, but in typical Harry Potter fashion, he didn’t respond.

“We’ll be a bit cramped,” Mr. Weasley, already halfway inside the first tent, called, “but I think we’ll all squeeze in. Come and have a look.”

They all piled in, and on the inside the tent was an old-fashioned three room flat. It smelled of cats, and she hoped very much that the second tent, which she and Ginny would be sharing, didn’t smell quite as strongly.

To her great relief, it didn’t. However, Despite their amenities, Mr. Weasley was determined to do some “real muggle camping” and so rather than using either of the full kitchens inside each of the tents, he planned to cook outside over and open fire. Hermione did not have the heart to tell him that if using the oven wasn’t muggle-like enough, the proper beds and bathrooms would have to go as well. She, Ron, and Harry were assigned to go get water (in a tea kettle and two saucepans) from a tap in the campsite, while the others gathered firewood.

Hermione took her saucepan, and set off with her friends. The sun had risen, and the mist was lifting, and suddenly she did not feel quite so sleepy anymore. She didn’t even mind the walk. She was fully in the wizarding world again, and somehow that felt more real here than at the burrow, and the city of tents was utterly fascinating besides. Because it wasn’t only English witches and wizards, oh no, there were people from all over who had come to the world cup. And there were tiny little children, and for the first time, Hermione found herself wondering what it might have been like to grow up with wizarding parents.

Outside of a rather exquisite looking purple tent, she saw a young mother trying to get breakfast started over a camp stove, while three young children crowded around her, continually interrupting. She guessed, from the set up, that the family had, like the Weasleys, chosen to stick to the rules to the best of their ability, and that’s why the tired looking witch was cooking outdoors. But the tent was so obviously magical — with its drapey purple fabric and glittery silver threads — that they could have saved their efforts, and besides that the children were all wearing wizards’ robes.

The middle child, she looked to be about five years old, was crying “I don’t want porridge!” at the top of her voice.

Just then, the pot that her mother was stirring flashed brightly, and turned into a pan, which was filled with bacon. The little girl who didn’t want porridge laughed and clapped her hands together with delight, and her younger brother burst into tears. Hermione noticed the mother sigh heavily, and then look around furtively before drawing her wand out of a pocket.

Up ahead a little ways, there were two tiny girls whose parents had at least tried to dress them in muggle clothes, only they’d done so with the same level of skill that the average wizard had in disguising himself. They were each wearing a warm woolly jumper, which would have made perfect sense on such a chilly morning, except for the fact that they were several sizes too large and the girls were wearing them as dresses. It looked as though they were each wearing a loose, knit, sack, and the excess sleeves trailed awkwardly, hiding their hands from view altogether.

As she watched them, each girl picked up a small broomstick off the ground, and proceeded to hop on. They only flew about a foot off the ground, but she hoped Mr. Roberts didn’t see it, for his own sake. Hermione hadn’t spent much time around younger children, but she guessed they were three or four at the oldest. They were laughing and smiling, their toes just barely skimming the top of the dewy grass. She turned to her friends. Ron seemed not to notice any of it, he had both hands on the kettle he was carrying, and his eyes straight ahead. But Harry, Harry Potter was beaming at the wizarding children.

Closer to the tap, they entered a maze of bright green tents. At least, she thought they were bright green at first, but on closer inspection they were all covered with living shamrocks. Suddenly, she heard a shout of “Harry! Ron! Hermione!”

It was Seamus Finnigan, who was in the same year as them and in Gryffindor house, at Hogwarts. He was also, Hermione remembered, Irish, and he was beaming with excitement in front of his own plant covered tent. Dean Thomas, who was also in Gryffindor, was with him, as was a woman who could only be Seamus’ mother.

“Ah, why shouldn’t we show our colors? You should see what the Bulgarians have got dangling all over their tents.” the woman fixed them with a suddenly serious stare, “You’ll be supporting Ireland, of course?”

All three of them assured Mrs. Finnigan that yes, they would, and they walked on.

“I wonder what the Bulgarians have got dangling all over their tents?” Hermione said, aloud.

Just then, the group of young wizards spotted the Bulgarian camp. They decided to go see for themselves.

After a short walk to the area where they had seen the Bulgarian flag, they found themselves in a cluster of tents which looked rather more ordinary than the Irish ones. Well, they looked ordinary except that each one had the same poster attached to it. It was a simple image, no text at all, of a young man’s face. He had very heavy black eyebrows, and intense black eyes, and although it was a wizarding photograph, he was hardly moving at all. The effect of all of those serious, sill-ish, faces surrounding them, was quite intense. They would have looked like muggle photographs, Hermione thought to herself, but they were moving just enough, mostly just frowning or breathing, to feel alive. It was eerie.

“Krum,” said Ron in an oddly hushed voice.

“What?” Hermione asked.

“Krum!” he repeated, this time a little louder, “Viktor Krum, the Bulgarian Seeker!”

But she’d said the wrong thing. Ron rolled his eyes dramatically saying, “Really grumpy? Who cares what he looks like? He’s unbelievable. He’s really young too. Only just eighteen or something. He’s a genius, you wait until tonight, you’ll see.”

And Hermione said nothing, because what on earth could she say?

Soon enough, they arrived at the tap, and retrieved their water. They saw many more Hogwarts students on the walk back. Oliver Wood, who had just graduated, and had been captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team, made a big show of pulling Harry — and only Harry — over to his tent to meet his parents. Hermione exchanged a sympathetic look with Ron while they waited, clutching kettle and saucepan, now heavy with water. Then they saw Ernie Macmillan, from Hufflepuff house, and Cho Chang, from Ravenclaw. Harry blushed slightly when he saw Cho, and Hermione remembered that he had been rather taken with her. Ron seemed to find the whole thing rather humorous, which annoyed her a little.

They also saw quite a few teenagers who didn’t go to Hogwarts. Of course, as it was the Quidditch World Cup, it was to be expected really, but Harry, looking like a lost puppy, seemed surprised. Hermione could not, for the life of her, understand why he took so little interest in the wizarding world. Had it never occurred to him that there was a universe outside of England? He could be intelligent about some things, she thought, but he was lucky his parents had been wizards. If he had been muggle born, she thought, people would take his obliviousness as evidence that he wasn’t smart enough for magic.

Back at the tents, the campfire still was not started, owing to the fact that Mr. Weasley didn’t know how.

“Dad’s having fun with the matches,” Fred said, gesturing at Mr. Weasley with his eyes. And it really did look as though Mr. Weasley was enjoying himself, though he was absolutely surrounded by a pile of splintered matches.

Suddenly, he did manage to light one, but he shouted “oops!” and dropped it before anything could be made of the tiny spark.

Hermione found herself taking pity on him. Starting fires, she remembered, could be hard work when one wasn’t used to it. She headed over to him, saying “Come here, Mr. Weasley,” and gently took the box from his hands. She was glad to have something useful to do, and soon enough the fire was roaring. While they waited for it to heat up, they watched the various witches and wizards pass by, and Mr. Weasley pointed out who worked for the Ministry and explained what their department was. Or rather, he explained it to Hermione and Harry, his own children looked thoroughly bored and disinterested. Hermione was taking mental notes.

“That was Cuthbert Mockridge, Head of the Goblin Liaison Office… Here comes Gilbert Wimple; he’s with the Committee on Experimental Charms; he’s had those horns for a while now… Hello, Arnie… Arnold Peasegood, he’s an Obliviator — member of the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad, you know… and that’s Bode and Croaker… they’re Unspeakables…”

“They’re what?” she said with a bit of a start.

“From the Department of Mysteries, top secret, no idea what they get up to…”

When the meal was nearly finished cooking, she spotted the older Weasleys coming towards them, from the wood. “Just Apparated, Dad.” Percy announced, rather excitedly, “Ah, excellent, lunch!” And they all sat down together around the fire, eating eggs and sausages off of tin camping plates. Halfway through, Mr. Weasley jumped up and waved at a man who was striding purposefully towards them.

“Aha!” Mr. Weasley said, jovially, “The man of the moment! Ludo!”

It was, of course, Ludo Bagman. And it was quite clear that he had given less thought to security than the parents allowing their children toy broomsticks! He was dressed in yellow and black Quidditch robes, emblazoned with an enormous picture of a wasp across his front. He was a stocky man, with a squashed nose and a shock of blond hair. In addition to being the most oblivious to anti-muggle security, Hermione thought he was also the happiest person she’d seen all morning, which was saying something.

“Ahoy there!” He called out at them, and bounced to their little camp. “Arthur, old man, what a day, eh? What a day! Could we have asked for more perfect weather? A cloudless night coming… and hardly a hiccough in the arrangements… Not much for me to do!”

Hermione glanced around him, and happened to notice a group of haggard-looking Ministry wizards rushing past, pointing at the distant evidence of a magical fire sending violet sparks up into the air like fireworks.

Percy stepped forward at once, obviously eager to meet Ludo Bagman, despite what he’d said about how he ran his department.

“Ah — yes,” Mr. Weasley was positively beaming with pride, “this is my son Percy. He’s just started at the Ministry — and this is Fred — no, George, sorry — that’s Fred — Bill, Charlie, Ron — my daughter, Ginny — and Ron’s friends Hermione Granger and Harry Potter. Everyone, this is Ludo Bagman, you know who he is, it’s thanks to him we’ve got such good tickets.”

Bagman, still grinning, waved his hand as if to say it had been nothing. Then his face changed suddenly, “Fancy a flutter on the match, Arthur?” he said, jingling what seemed to be a large amount of gold coins in the pocket of his Quidditch robes. “I’ve already got Roddy Pontner betting me Bulgaria will score first…”

Hermione stared on in wonder as they discussed the terms, and Mr. Weasley agreed to put a Galleon on Ireland to win. Mr. Bagman looked disappointed, but considering how poor the Weasleys were, Hermione was shocked to see him risking money like that.

“Very well, very well… any other takers?”

“They’re a bit young to be gambling,” said Mr. Weasley. “Molly wouldn’t like —”

Just then Fred was on his feet, saying “We’ll bet thirty-seven Galleons, fifteen Sickles, three Knuts, that Ireland wins — but Viktor Krum gets the Snitch. Oh and we’ll throw in a fake wand.” George was nodding along seriously.

“You don’t want to go showing Mr. Bagman rubbish like that —” Percy said under his breath. But too late, Ludo Bagman already had the fake wand in his hand, and he looked delighted. The wand gave a loud squawk and abruptly turned into a rubber chicken, and Mr. Bagman roared with laughter.

“Excellent!” Ludo Bagman said, “I haven’t seen one that convincing in years!” I’d pay five Galleons for that!”

Mr. Weasley looked flushed, and he said “Boys… I don’t want you betting… That’s all your savings… Your mother…”

“Don’t be a spoilsport, Arthur!” boomed Bagman, and then he ranted about the odds and the terms and took down the twins names, while Mr. Weasley looked on helplessly. Then he said, “couldn’t do me a brew, I suppose? I’m keeping an eye out for Barty Crouch. My Bulgarian opposite number’s making difficulties, and I can’t understand a word he’s saying. Barty’ll be able to sort it out. He speaks about a hundred and fifty languages!”

“Mr. Crouch?” said Percy Weasley, “he speaks over two hundred! Mermish and Gobbledegook and Troll…”

“Anyone can speak Troll,” said Fred dismissively, “All you have to do is point and grunt.”

Hermione reflected that that, almost certainly, wasn’t true.

“Any news of Bertha Jorkins yet, Ludo?” Mr. Weasley asked, as Ludo settled himself down on the grass to wait for his tea.

“Not a dicky bird,” said Bagman, “But she’ll turn up. Poor old Bertha… memory like a leaky cauldron and no sense of direction. Lost, you take my word for it. She’ll wander back into the office sometime in October, thinking it’s still July.”

Mr. Weasley frowned slightly, “you don’t think it might be time to send someone to look for her?”

Bagman took his teacup from Percy with both hands, saying “Barty Crouch keeps saying that… But we really can’t spare anyone at the moment. Oh — talk of the devil! Barty!” and his face completely changed.

Hermione looked up and saw a man standing right next to their little fireside — he must have just apparated there — who looked much more like her idea of a ministry wizard than Ludo Bagman. He was an elderly man, with impeccable posture, dressed in a perfectly muggle-like suit and tie. His hair was straight and tidy, and even his mustache seemed perfect. He looked out of place next to Ludo Bagman, yes, but he also looked out of place at the whole event. There wasn’t a hint of oddity or whimsey about him, she thought.

“Pull up a bit of grass, Barty!” said Ludo, looking rather like a schoolboy and patting the ground beside him.

“No thank you, Ludo,” said Mr. Crouch in a crisp voice that sounded impatient, “I’ve been looking for you everywhere. The Bulgarians are insisting we add another twelve seats to the Top Box.”

“Oh is that what they’re after?” said Bagman, grinning, “I thought the chap was asking to borrow a pair of tweezers. Bit of a strong accent.”

“Mr. Crouch! Would you like a cup of tea?” said Percy, sounded a little awed.

“Oh. Yes. Thank you, Weatherby.” said Mr. Crouch.

Poor Percy went pink around the ears, and busied himself with the kettle. Of course, Fred and George were holding back giggles and hiding behind their own teacups. Hermione glared at them, but she wasn’t sure they noticed, they were so hysterical.

Hermione sat back, sipping her own tea, letting the talk go on around her. She wasn’t sure that she liked either of the men, if she was being honest, though she was trying hard to reserve judgement. Bagman was sloppy, lazy, and insensitive. And while Hermione could certainly see the need for following rules, there was something in Mr. Crouch’s demeanor that made her distinctly uncomfortable. When she looked up from her tea, and her thoughts, they were discussing flying carpets.

“Ali thinks there’s a niche in the market for a family vehicle,” Mr. Crouch was saying, “I remember my grandfather had an Axminster that could seat twelve — that was before carpets were banned, of course.” He spoke as though he wanted to leave nobody in any doubt that all his ancestors had abided strictly by the law.

“So, been keeping busy, Barty?” Ludo Bagman asked.

“Fairly,” she thought she detected a hint of sarcasm in Mr. Crouch’s voice. “Organizing Portkeys across five continents is no mean feat, Ludo.

“I expect you’ll both be glad when this is over?” said Mr. Weasley.

The look on Bagman’s face was priceless. “Glad!” He gulped in surprise, “Don’t know when I’ve had more fun… Still, it’s not as though we haven’t got anything to look forward to, eh, Barty? Eh Plenty left to organize, eh?”

At that moment, Mr. Crouch pushed his teacup, still untouched, back into Percy’s hand, saying “Ludo, we need to meet the Bulgarians, you know.”

As they walked off, Fred immediately asked his father about whatever it was that was happening at Hogwarts. Whatever it was, it was clear enough that Mr. Bagman wanted them to wonder what it was, and Mr. Crouch didn’t want them to know.

“It’s classified information, until such time as the Ministry decides to release it,” said Percy. “Mr. Crouch was quite right not to disclose it.”

“Oh shut up, Weatherby.” said Fred. And Percy’s ears went red all over again.

By dusk, the entire camp seemed to be buzzing with excitement. It seemed that, whether they were wizards or muggles, large group sporting events seemed to have the same sort of effect on people. At some point the Ministry must have gave up altogether on stopping blatant and obvious magic, because suddenly it was like being fully in the wizarding world. And salespeople popped up nearly everywhere, they were just Apparating all over the camp, with trays of incredible merchandise. Hermione knew most of the objects were really just enchanted with rather simple charms, but she couldn’t help but marvel at the rosettes that squealed out the names of the players, Irish hats covered in dancing shamrocks, and Bulgarian scarves decorated with lions that really roared. There were even tiny collectible figurines of some of the players (the more famous ones, she thought) which would stroll across a palm or surface. She couldn’t imagine how awkward it must feel to know there were all those tiny versions of oneself out there in the world.

“Been saving my pocket money all summer for this,” Ron said to Harry, right next to her, as they strolled through the crowd of people buying and selling frantically. He bought one of the shamrock hats and a green rosette, but he also bought a figurine of Viktor Krum, whom she recalled he had said was the Seeker for Bulgaria, not Ireland.

“Wow look at this!” she heard Harry say, as she was examining flags which played national anthems. Suddenly he was off, dashing to a cart piled high with what looked like brass binoculars. Hermione sighed, and followed.

“Omnioculars!” said the saleswizard, rather eagerly. “You can replay action… slow everything down… and they flash up a play-by-play breakdown if you need it. Bargain — ten Galleons each.”

“Wish I hadn’t bought this now,” said Ron, and he looked down sadly at his so recently loved purchases.

“Three pairs.” Harry said firmly to the wiard.

“No — don’t bother,” Ron was going red, but Hermione knew better than to try to fight with Harry when he was trying to be generous. It could be a little uncomfortable, Harry had inherited a wizard’s fortune from his deceased parents, but she supposed it made him feel good to spread it around.

“You won’t be getting anything for Christmas,” Harry said cheerfully, passing the Omnioculars to her and Ron. “For about ten years, mind.”

“Fair enough,” Ron managed a grin.“Thanks, Harry.” Hermione said, “And I’ll get us some programs…” after all, it would be dreadful to have no idea what was going on during the match.

In the jostling crowd of shoppers, they slowly located the other Weasleys, and managed to get in a little clump again. She’d just noticed that the twins hadn’t bought any souvenirs, and supposed it was because they’d gambled all their money away with Mr. Bagman, when a deep, booming, gong sounded somewhere out in the distance. It startled her, but all at once the forest was illuminated with green and red lanterns. They were clearly lighting a path to the field.

Mr. Weasley said “it’s time! Come on, let’s go!” and they all hurried off into those trees.

***

Deconstruction / Notes On The Source Text / SOME META STUFF

Did that chapter feel like it went on forever to you? It did to me, partly because it’s over twice as long as the previous chapter, and partly because it took me over three times as long to complete.

And partly because, once again, Hermione barely speaks.

This chapter is frustrating for a thousand reasons, but mainly it just feels like it drags to me. There’s no plot happening, they’re just setting up the camp and walking through it and cooking eggs and drinking tea and buying shit. And yet, there’s a ton of information in here that can’t really be skipped. The world building isn’t excellent, but there is some in here. And there’s foreshadowing and information about various characters that will come into play later. We need this chapter, I just wish we didn’t. And this is one of the faults of doing this chapter-by-chapter! If I was re-writing the entire story and structuring it myself, I feel like I would have done this differently somehow. I don’t want to say J.K. Rowling did a terrible job, because look, I didn’t write seven novels (yet). But it seems like there has to be a better way! This chapter feels like filler.

Also, I’m coming at this from a place of bias. I really, really, do not enjoy sports.

There’s a few things I want to talk about here, but fair warning that I’m a little off just now so it’s possible I’ll forget something. I’ve literally been working on this chapter over the course of three weeks (I wish I was kidding) so it’s a bit tricky.

What I’m noticing, more and more, is that these books aren’t merely told from the perspective of Harry Potter. No, they’re told from the perspective of Harry Potter in a world in which everything revolves around Harry Potter. Assuming the narrator is reliable, nearly everyone in this world defers to Harry Potter, prefers to talk to Harry Potter over almost anyone else, and wants to take time to explain things to Harry Potter. It’s as realistic as playing one of those videogames in which every towns person you meet reveals some other little bit of your quest. That is, it isn’t realistic at all.

The original text continues to more or less forget about Hermione. Occasionally it reminds us that she is there (it’s the THREE of them going to get water!) and every once in awhile it takes the opportunity to have Hermione mention that she doesn’t know about sports. She doesn’t know who Viktor Krum is, and neither does Harry but he at least has the decency to play along. The question of why Hermione is even here, other than the obvious narrative convenience, looms ever present.

Mr. Weasley has forgotten she is there altogether, it would seem.

He needs to know how to use muggle money (wait, why are they camping on muggle land with muggles taking their money? Doesn’t that seem counter to the Ministry’s whole attitude? We couldn’t have too many witches and wizards on the trains but we can have this? And knowing this, why the hell didn’t Mr. Weasley plan ahead and have the correct change ready? Planning, folks, it helps!) and he asks Harry. He needs to know how to put up a tent, and so he asks Harry. He needs to know how to light a fire, and so he tries himself until Hermione takes pity on him and does it for him.

Hermione is muggle born. Hermione has been camping. Hermione also takes the time to understand how the wizarding world actually works, unlike Harry who’s all “woah, wizards in other countries have like, schools?” Hermione is your greatest asset in this awkward nonsensical situation. And hey, that would actually make a great reason to invite her, except for the fact that he, and everyone else, is ignoring her.

And she’s nice and sweet through it all. Which is hard. It’s oh so hard. I had to struggle not to write this chapter way snarkier, because every time the text said something like “Harry said to Ron” I wanted to type “Harry said to Ron, not Hermione, never Hermione, god forbid he talk to Hermione.”

Ok, and, the implications with Mr. Roberts. Mr. Roberts is just doing his job. His job has suddenly gotten really really weird. He’s doing the best he can. Wizards have created this situation where Mr. Roberts is, unbeknownst to him, working for wizards at the biggest wizarding event of the year and the biggest wizarding event in England in many years. He hasn’t had the opportunity to consent to working this special event because he isn’t supposed to know that it exists.

So what do they do? Every time he gets suspicious, they zap his memory again.

That’s… really icky.

The wizarding world seems to have this idea that if they undo something, it never really happened and doesn’t matter. They think that if they put Dudley’s tongue back to normal, it’s no big deal and why should he be upset? And they think that as long as they remove the memory, it doesn’t matter what you saw and how it upset you. The idea that these people — people with incredible powers — can do whatever they want to you as long as they make you forget it afterwards, well, it kind of makes my skin crawl.

And it puts whats going to happen with Mr. Roberts later into a bizarre sort of context. What is the problem with the Death Eater’s little prank, exactly? Maybe it’s that they didn’t intend to wipe anyone’s memory of the incident. Shudder.

Furthermore, we know that overuse of memory charms can and does have a negative affect on people (Lockhart, way back in book two) and we know that memory charms can be cracked and the real memories remain… somewhere (it’s in book six). So the fact that this is the system the organizers of this very major event have decided on shows a total and complete lack of respect for the basic humanity of anyone who is not a wizard. And that should be upsetting to anyone, but it must particularly be upsetting to those young witches and wizards who have been raised by muggles and lived in the muggle world.

It undermines one’s confidence in reality.

For Harry, this inspires no existential crisis. He despises the muggle world and the time he must spend in it, and seeks full integration into the magical world with no remaining ties to the outside world. But Hermione is different. Hermione has a foot in both worlds, because she has no choice. Hermione loves her parents, and her extended muggle family, and her muggle friends. This has to be utterly terrifying.

But about Harry… for someone who wishes to completely integrate into wizarding society, he certainly seems to know very little about it. This is something that has bothered me about literally every single book (excluding the first one) since I read them through the first time, but why is Harry constantly surprised that there are magical things in the magical world? He spends more than half of his time in the magical world, and seems to find it interesting, yet, each time is like the first time for him. He never seems to wonder how wizards handle anything until he’s right up against it.

And it’s particularly galling here, because he’s a quidditch star at school. I know the Dursleys won’t let him participate in the magical world much, but you’d think Harry Potter would follow professional quidditch, at least while he’s at school. It turns out… no? He never mentions having a favorite team, never mentions wanting to go to a match, actually seems to have no interest whatsoever until he’s actually at the world cup. In this one thing, Harry and Hermione actually act about the same. Neither of them knew who was playing until the last couple of days, neither of them seem to care about the outcome of this match much, both of them seem more interested in experiencing this particular aspect of wizarding culture than they are in who wins. And yet, Hermione is a girl and commits the cardinal sin of saying Viktor Krum looks “grumpy” and therefore she is obviously clueless. Harry, on the other hand, is given a pass. It’s assumed that he either does know all these things, or he would if only he had the opportunity. Even though, if quidditch is such a big deal, you’d think living in a dormitory with multiple quidditch obsessed boys would have made it hard not to know everything there is to know about professional quidditch, especially when one is, you know, a sports star themselves.

Harry Potter is a master at avoiding acquiring knowledge he really should have, for the sake of being a better reader insert character.

There is a lot more we could get into in this horrible endless chapter, but I think that’s the major stuff I wanted to touch on. Apologies for the inevitable typos, because I don’t have time to edit as well as I’d like today.

Now one final thing! So part of the reason I’ve started this project is because I want to get better at writing fiction (I currently primarily write non-fiction/autobiographical type stuff) and in that vein, I’ve allowed myself to be talked into NaNoWrioMo. I’m super pumped! But I’m also a realist/defensive pessimist (my optimist spouse would say that the fact that I put that slash where I did is evidence of the levels of my pessimism). I have a one year old, and a partner who works most of the week, and I do paid freelance writing to pay the bills. So! Hermione Granger posts could get incredibly infrequent in the month of November and it’s not what I want but them’s the breaks. I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth, and worst case scenario you’ll see me, and Hermione, in December.

Hermione Granger And The Goblet of Sexism

Chapter Six

The Portkey/The Portkey

Despite what Harry and Ron may have believed, Hermione knew quite a bit about quidditch. Just because she wasn’t interested in playing for the Gryffindor house team, like Harry, or an avid fan, like Ron and Ginny, it was assumed that she wasn’t interested at all and couldn’t follow a game. But she’d been to every school match in all three of her years at Hogwarts, and she’d studied the history of quidditch, besides. She knew, for example, that the Golden Snitch — the tiny hyper-fast ball that zoomed around the pitch requiring a specialized player called a Seeker (Harry’s position on the school team) — had only been added to the game in the eighteenth century, after several bloody bludger accidents. She was certain that Harry had no idea how controversial his role in the game had once been, because for some reason Harry and Ron both had a deep hatred for all things historical. So, despite the fact that she owned no quidditch posters of her own, she was actually quite excited to be attending a match as important as the world cup. It was bound to be fascinating, she thought.

Of course, none of that occurred to her when Mrs. Weasley came in to wake her and Ginny well before dawn the next day. She’d been up late talking with Ginny, who had questioned her repeatedly about if she fancied any boys in her year (she didn’t, and she suddenly found herself wondering, maybe for the first time, why not). She could not remember a time when she’d been this tired.

“Oh look lively, girls!” Mrs. Weasley said shortly. She pulled the covers clear off of Ginny, but thankfully as Hermione was a guest, she was slightly kinder to her. Hermione dragged a jumper over her head in the still dark bedroom, and they stumbled out to the kitchen. Ron, Harry, and the twins were already seated at the table, looking just as bleary-eyed as she felt.

She spotted a pot of coffee on the table, and it was like a ray of perfect sunshine to her.

As she pulled out a chair, Ginny sat down next to her, saying “Why do we have to be up so early?”

“We’ve got a bit of a walk,” Mr. Weasley answered. He was dressed in muggle clothing, as, Hermione noticed, were all of his children. The difference, of course, was that the younger generation seemed to know how muggles actually dressed, whereas their parents tended to throw things together in a hodge podge sort of way.

“What, are we walking to the World Cup?” Harry asked.

“No no, that’s miles away. We only need to walk a short way. It’s just very difficut for a large number of wizards to congregate without attracting Muggle attention. We have to be very careful about how we travel at the best of times, and on a huge occasion like the Quidditch World Cup—”

Just then, Mrs. Weasley shouted “George!” and everyone jumped.

“What?” said George, feigning innocence.

“What is that in your pocket?” said his mother.

“Nothing!“Don’t you lie to me!” and then she pointed her wand at George’s pocket and said, “Accio!” in a clear voice.

Several small, brightly colored objects zoomed out of his pockets, and he, rather foolishly, tried to grab for them in the air as they sped into his mother’s waiting palm.

“We told you to destroy them!” Mrs. Weasley said furiously, and what she was holding in her hand looked to be more of the trick sweets that had caused the row the night before. “We told you to get rid of the lot! Empty your pockets, go on, both of you!”

Hermione didn’t know quite how to feel as she watched the twins give up the labors of their hard work. On the one hand, they were obviously dangerous objects, that much was certain. On the other hand, Mrs. Weasley’s briskness made it easy to feel defensive of the two boys who’d put so much work into the sweets. They were obviously passionate about what they were doing, but Hermione couldn’t understand why, and shook her head to herself. When they set off to leave, Hermione drained her coffee cup and noticed that the twins left the room without saying goodbye to Mrs. Weasley at all.

“I’ll send Bill, Charlie, and Percy along around midday,” Mrs. Weasley said to her husband. The older Weasley children would be arriving by apparition, a sort of magical disappearing and reappearing, and so they had no need to get up and walk so early in the morning.

It was nearly daybreak, the countryside was still and sleepy. A dull, greenish tinge along the horizon to their right hinted at the coming sunrise, and the moon still shone above them. Hermione walked alongside Ginny, while Ron bumbled along in sleepy silence, and Harry sped up to pepper Mr. Weasley with logistical questions.

“So how does everyone get there without all the Muggles noticing?”

“It’s been a massive organization problem,” Mr. Weasley replied, and he did not seem to mind chatting before the sun was up, “The trouble is, about a hundred thousand wizards turn up at the World Cup, and of course, we just haven’t got a magical site big enough to accommodate them all. There are places Muggles can’t penetrate, but imagine trying to pack a hundred thousand wizards into Diagon Alley or platform nine and three-quarters. So we had to find a nice deserted moor, and set up as many anti-Muggle precautions as possible…”

Hermione winced at the term “anti-muggle.”

“…The whole Ministry’s been working on it for months. First, of course, we have to stagger the arrivals. People with cheaper tickets have to arrive two weeks beforehand. A limited number use Muggle transport, but we can’t have too many clogging up their buses and trains — remember, wizards are coming from all over the world. Some Apparate, of course, but we have to set up safe points for them to appear, well away from Muggles. I believe there’s a handy wood they’re using as the Apparition point. For those who don’t want to Apparate, or can’t, we use Portkeys.”

Hermione knew from her studies that a Portkey was an everyday object, which was set with a spell by wizards, to be used to transport people at a prearranged time. But she listened to Mr. Weasley explain the concept to Harry, anyhow.

“They can be anything,” he was saying, “Unobtrusive things, obviously, so Muggles don’t go picking them up and playing with them… stuff they’ll just think is litter…”

She wondered if there ever had been an incident of muggles getting into trouble with Portkeys, and made a mental note to look it up once she had the full use of the Hogwarts library again. As they trudged down the dark lane, she noticed that the sky was lightening very slowly. It really was a very beautiful morning. She smiled at Ron, walking beside her, but he seemed not to noticed. And then the whole lot of them took a deep breath, and started to climb up Stoatshead Hill. It looked to be hard work, but Mr. Weasley said that the Portkey was at the top, and she was rather looking forward to being transported by magic, rather than her own feet, for a change.

Far from a bit of a walk, it was actually a rather laborious climb. She had to use her hands as well as her feet, and her arms and legs ached. The sky was getting lighter and lighter, and she was very grateful for the cup of strong coffee she’d had back at the burrow. Somehow everyone else managed the hill faster than she did, and though she tried to hide it, she found herself clutching at an enormous stitch in her side as she pulled herself up over the crest of the hill. She took a deep breath. She shook off her embarrassment, there was no need for that.

“Now we just need the Portkey,” said Mr. Weasley, replacing his glasses, “It won’t be big… come on…” and everyone spread out to look for a small object that could have been altered, imperceptibly, by wizards. All of a sudden, she heard a shout.

“Over here, Arthur! Over here, son, we’ve got it!” the voice wasn’t any of the Weasleys, nor was it Harry Potter. Hermione was relieved to give up the search, and looked up to see who it was.

There were two tall figures silhouetted against the starry sky on the other side of the hilltop. Mr. Weasley shouted “Amos!” with a smile of recognition, and strode over to them. The rest of the group followed. When they got a bit closer, she could see that the wizard who had called was a ruddy-faced man with a scrubby brown beard, and he holding a very old, rather unclean looking, boot. And next to him, to her surprise, was a young wizard she recognized from school.

“This is Amos Diggory, everyone,” Mr. Weasley said, “He works for the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. And I think you know his son, Cedric?”

Cedric Diggory was around seventeen, had blond-ish colored hair, and all of the girls in Hermione’s dormitory found him to extremely handsome. She supposed he was good looking, in a certain kind of way. Seeing him brought back an old worry, perhaps there was something wrong with her, if she didn’t find the right boys attractive? He was also Captain and Seeker of the Hufflepuff House Quidditch team back at Hogwarts. He said “Hi,” in a tentative sort of way.

And with good reason, everyone else said hi back, but Fred and George flatly ignored him. The previous year, Hufflepuff had beat Gryffindor at quidditch, and of course Fred and George had held a grudge. Hermione was proud to be a Gryffindor, as were all of the Weasleys and Harry, but she couldn’t ever quite wrap her head around why the boys placed so much weight on quidditch matches.

“Long walk, Arthur?” Amos Diggory asked.

“Not too bad, We live just on the other side of the village there. You?”

“Had to get up at two, didn’t we, Ced? I tell you, I’ll be glad when he’s got his Apparition test. Still… not complaining… Quidditch world Cup, wouldn’t miss it for a sackful of Galleons — and the tickets cost about that. Mind you, looks like I got off easy…” Mr. Diggory peered good-naturedly around at the small crowd of teenagers; four Weasleys, Hermione, and Harry. “All these yours, Arthur?”

“Oh no, only the redheads,” said Mr. Weasley, gesturing to his own children, “This is Hermione, a friend of Ron’s, and Harry, another friend —”

“Merlin’s beard,” Amos Diggory’s eyes widened. “Harry? Harry Potter?”

Harry looked rather awkward, and from next to Hermione he let out a tentative “Er — yeah…” in confirmation that he was, in fact, himself.

But Mr. Diggory didn’t miss a beat, “Ced’s talked about you, of course. Told us all about playing against you last year… I said to him, I said — Ced, that’ll be something to tell your grandchildren, that will… You beat Harry Potter!”

“Harry fell of his broom, Dad,” Cedric Diggory said in a quiet, uncomfortable, voice, “I told you… it was an accident….”

“Yes, but you didn’t fall off, did you?” and Mr. Diggory slapped his son on the back good-naturedly, blissfully unaware of how tense everyone else had become. “Always modest, our Ced, always the gentleman… but the best man won, I’m sure Harry’d say the same, wouldn’t you, eh? One falls off his broom, one stays on, you don’t need to be a genius to tell which one’s the better flier!”

Hermione could just barely hear one of the twins muttering to the other.

“Must be nearly time,” said Mr. Weasley quickly, before things could get any worse, “Do you know whether we’re waiting for any more, Amos?”

“No, the Lovegoods have been there for a week already and the Fawcetts couldn’t get tickets. There aren’t any more of us in this area, are there?”

“Not that I know of,” Mr. Weasley was checking his watch. “Yes, it’s a minute off… We’d better get ready…”

Her turned to Hermione and Harry, and said “You just need to touch the Portkey, that’s all, a finger will do.” She supposed that his own children must have traveled by Portkey before.

The whole group crowded around the old boot, held by Amos Diggory, all reaching in to touch the thing. They were positively smashed together, and Fred Weasley’s backpack kept jostling Hermione. She was, however, determined not to let it go. Then she heard Mr. Weasley count down, “three… two… one…”

And then it was as though a hook caught just behind her navel, somewhere in the center of her body, and jerked her forward. She felt her feet leave the ground, and she banged hard into Harry who was on her right hand side, while Fred’s backpack positively attacked her on her left. Everything was a swirl of color, but then she closed her eyes hard, so she wouldn’t be sick. Witches, she told herself, wouldn’t panic over a mere portkey.

Then, all at once, she was slamming hard into the cold ground. When she opened her eyes, she was somewhere completely different, and only the two adults and Cedric Diggory had managed to stay on their feet.

A voice called out “seven past five from Stoatshead Hill!”

Deconstruction, Notes On The Source Text

Good morning! Here we have an entire chapter in a Harry Potter book, with Hermione Granger is nearly ever scene. The only part, in the original, that she is not in is the first three pages, because she wakes up in a different room than Harry, and for some reason Ginny and Hermione wake up slightly later than the boys, and stumble into the kitchen only after they’ve already sat down to breakfast. Then, the narrative completely forgets about Hermione Granger, because right now we are telling a story about Harry Potter and his Adventure With The Weasley Family.

I know we talked about this last week, but I just can’t let it go. Not a peep out of our girl, not one. So why the hell is she even here?

I think the answer (from a doylistic perspective!) is that J.K. Rowling needed someone quick witted and thoughtful, who would suss out the details and bring up everything that Ron and Harry are too cool (lazy) to read later on when shit gets weird. Hermione provides an awful lot of exposition, but she needs to be there to do it.

And of course, since we’ve already painted her as a brain who’s not terribly fond of sports, and she’s muggle born, it would make zero sense (from a watsonian perspective) for her to meet up with Ron and Harry at the World Cup. So, we had to do it this way. Ok then.

Except, of course, this way doesn’t make terribly much sense either. Why would Ron, who’s only ever shown an interest in having Harry come and stay, not Hermione, invite Hermione Granger in the first place? And why do the Weasleys, who remember are supposedly really poor, let Ron have two friends come along? They may have got the tickets for free (a perk of being a corrupt low level official for Arthur Weasley!) but they still have to put these children up and feed them. And, hang on, but none of the other Weasley children have guests coming with them, even though the twins and Ginny, at the very least, are shown again and again to be WAY more social than brother Ron. I guess maybe since Hermione is muggle born, and Harry’s guardians are muggles, the Weasley family took pity on them, having no way to attend this historic sporting event independently.

Except that implies that of Fred, George, and Ginny, not one of them has a muggle born friend. That seems rather unlikely, given the prevalence of muggle borns in the books. And remember, the Weasleys are blood traitors, at least according to bigots like the Malfoys. The family is known for sympathizing with muggles and muggle borns (though they still retain a lot of weird prejudices and Arthur Weasley couldn’t even pass a muggle studies exam.

I’m trying to work with what I’ve got here, but I’m struggling to make this make sense in-world. It feels like the author stepping in, and moving the characters around for narrative convenience. Of course Hermione is there too because Harry, Ron, and Hermione, they all go together. They’re like a set! But only… she’s not really there, not exactly. Harry and the Weasleys chat and get on with things. But Hermione does not speak, she may as well be invisible.